


It's a What?

by MerryLilHobbit



Series: Life at the Hotel Transylvania [5]
Category: Hotel Transylvania (2012)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Family, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-27 06:50:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 32,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5038072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MerryLilHobbit/pseuds/MerryLilHobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've faced discrimination, mad tourists and crazy red-haired family members - but this is quite a difficult issue indeed. A somewhat humorous (I hope) collection showing how our favourite love birds deal with the prospect of new arrivals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Baby Makes Three

The February sky had finally started to darken for the evening, moonlight casting shadows on Hotel Transylvania and those who currently resided inside of it. A few monsters started to stir as the first rays of moonlight shone through their windows, starting to come out of deep, peaceful sleeps that came with such great accommodation and safety from humans.

One of these monsters was Johnny; the red-head made a snuffled yawning noise as he slowly drifted out of sleep and into consciousness, reaching out an arm to wrap around his wife as if to pull her closer. Mavis made a small, sleepy noise of contentment, happily nuzzling closer to her husband.

The couple were visiting the hotel for the week, taking a short break from their travels again so that they could spend some time with Mavis' Aunts and Uncles while they were staying; neither of them minded being back at the hotel that much, especially since it had become like a second home to them.

"Good evening," She mumbled, not even opening her eyes.

"Good evening," Johnny breathed back as he opened his eyes, nuzzling their noses together and making his wife smile slightly. "Mmm...is it just me, or do you look beautiful this evening?"

Mavis giggled quietly, rolling her eyes. "I've only just woken up."

"Yeah, but you look better than I probably do," Johnny said goofily, leaning closer and giving her a kiss.

It's not as if they were newly-weds or anything - no, they'd been married for three years now, and an intimate relationship was hardly foreign either. But that was the great thing about being zings; the love was just always there, even if you were mad at the person.

Just as the kiss started to get much more interesting, Johnny rolling on top of his wife and kissing his way down her neck, Mavis felt it - her stomach lurched, and she immediately felt nauseous. She let out a small gasp, quickly shoving the red-head off of her and zooming to the bathroom with her hand over her mouth.

Johnny, quite perplexed, simply stared at the spot where she'd been a moment ago. The sound of retching brought him out of his thoughts. "Mavis?" He called, alarmed, and quickly got off the bed to go to the bathroom. "Are you okay?" When he got to the door, he tried pushing it open - it was locked and wouldn't budge.

"I-I'm fine!" He heard Mavis say weakly; seconds later, he heard more vomit hit the toilet bowl.

"You're ill," Johnny argued, eyes wide. "Look, can you just open the door so I can come and look after you? Maybe hold your hair back or something?"

Pressing his ear up to the wood of the door, he listened for any kind of movement from inside: there was a little more retching, and when that stopped he heard a couple of sniffles. This was quickly followed by some shuffling noises, the toilet flushing, and then the door finally being unlocked and opened.

When he'd pulled his head back and looked at his wife properly, it was clear she wasn't quite okay; Mavis had gone paler than usual, her eyes puffy from having to puke so much, and she just looked _sick_.

"I'm fine," She muttered quickly when she saw his face, pushing past him to get back to bed. "I just...I'm fine."

"Fine? You threw up," Johnny pointed out, turning to look at her properly.

Mavis sighed, lying down on the coffin bed again and wrapping the duvet around herself. "I'm fine," She insisted tiredly, looking up at him with exhausted blue eyes. "I think I just need to sleep a little more..." She blinked up at him hopefully. "Stay with me?"

Johnny had no choice - as hungry as he was, and as much as he wanted to continue their previous make-out session, he also wanted to make sure Mavis was completely okay. After all, he'd never seen her sick before...Hell, he didn't even know that vampires _could_ get sick.

Honestly? He was kinda worried.

* * *

Throughout the next few nights, Mavis' behaviour continued to become stranger and stranger; on some mornings, she'd wake up and end up running for the bathroom to hurl before returning to bed. It only got stranger after that too - she'd either spend the rest of the day in their bedroom, tired and rundown, or wake up after a brief nap and suddenly feel ravenous for some food.

"Hey, I thought you didn't like mouse omelettes," Johnny stated, frowning slightly out of confusion as he sat down next to her with his own breakfast. "You said that they're gross and too chewy."

Mavis just shrugged, putting another forkful into her mouth. "I saw it and wanted some...it's not that bad actually."

Johnny didn't bother telling Dracula about these strange habits - the older vampire would immediately panic and start to over-worry himself if he thought his 'Mavy-Wavy' was hurt or ill in some way, and that was definitely not something that Johnny or Mavis wanted.

On the fourth morning that Mavis had raced out of bed to puke, though, Johnny knew that some kind of action had to take place.

"Don't any doctors work here or anything?" Johnny asked once Mavis had settled back into bed. She was seemingly okay now, since she was sitting up and watching him curiously. "I mean, surely there's _someone_ we could ask about this?"

"But I'm fine," Mavis told him for the umpteenth time that week. "I'm actually kind of hungry..."

The red-head blinked. "Yeah, but...you just threw up...like..." He sighed, running a hand through his unruly hair. "Look, Mavy, I'm just...worried. You're acting really weird lately, and-"

"Weird?" Mavis asked, raising an eyebrow and looking quite hurt. "What do you mean 'weird'?"

"Throwing up and then eating, like, tons of food!" The red-haired vampire pointed out desperately. "I mean, yesterday you had, like, three helpings of wormcakes for breakfast!"

This was clearly the wrong thing to point out because Mavis started to glare at him in an offended way. "Are you saying that I'm eating too much? That I'm fat or something?"

"What?! No!" Johnny answered hurriedly, eyes widening. "I meant...I mean..."

Mavis stood up, shaking her head in contempt. "Great. Thanks, Johnny - I'm getting too fat for you now!"

"Of course not! I just...I...uhh...I never said that!"

The result of this had been her storming downstairs to go and get some breakfast by herself; it was only when she got to the bar that she realized she'd over-reacted just a touch.

 _I'm going to apologize to him when I go back upstairs,_ she thought sadly, suddenly feeling awful that she'd stormed out on her husband like that. _He was only trying to help me...even if he was being annoying about it._

"Are you alright?" She heard a familiar voice to her right say, and she turned her head to look at her Auntie Wanda. "You look sad, sweetie."

"Yeah," She let out, grabbing a plate and shovelling a couple of wormcakes onto it. "I'm fine." _I seem to be saying a lot of that lately._..

Wanda gave her a small pat on the shoulder. "It's just that you haven't been yourself lately, and we're all quite worried about you."

As the two walked over to a table to sit down, Mavis just sighed and looked down at her plate. "I guess I'm just tired...it's really weird, because no matter how much I sleep I just feel _exhausted_."

Wanda gave a small chuckle. "I know what you mean," She agreed, sitting down next to the vampire and rubbing her currently flat stomach in circles. "Every time I've had a litter of pups the energy's just disappeared..."

Mavis just nodded as she listened, putting some wormcake into her mouth. She already knew quite a lot about when her Aunt had been pregnant with pups, having seen it for herself dozens of times.

"...Oh, and then there was the night sickness and cravings..."

Mavis paused in putting some food into her mouth and slowly lifted her head to look at her Aunt. "Huh?"

"The night sickness and cravings," Wanda repeated, reaching up with one hand to scratch her ear. "I used to get so sick in the evening...it only lasted a few weeks or so, but it was still unpleasant to experience. The cravings were okay...although, with the first few litters I went completely off of bacon..."

_Night sickness when waking up: check._

_Exhausted: check._

_Unusual cravings: check._

"Are you okay, Mavis?" Wanda asked, concerned. "You've stopped eating."

 _I can't be. No. I'm not._ "I'm fine," Mavis said lightly, staring ahead into space as her brain went crazy. "I'm just...thinking."

 _Dad once said moodiness and mood swings were a sign of pregnancy - he said that about my Mom, when she was having me. I haven't been that moody, have I?_ The fight she'd had with Johnny that morning reappeared in her mind, and she suddenly felt rather ill again.

"I'm not that hungry," The vampire managed, suddenly standing up. She looked at her Aunt apologetically, fidgeting on the spot slightly. "I'll see you later, Auntie Wanda. I think I need to go lay down."

* * *

"Getting hotter...hotter...colder but still warm..."

Johnny gave a small "ahh!" as he tripped and nearly landed head-first in the pool water; he regained his balance at the last minute and stretched his arms out again. "Where are you?"

"Warmer...hotter..." Winnie continued sweetly from her position on the poolside. "Hotter..."

Johnny took a few more steps forwards and finally managed to find what he wanted; he grinned as his hands grazed against Winnie's fur. "Got ya! Now, can I take my blindfold off?"

"Uh-huh!"

Johnny untied the knot and grinned at the werewolf pup. "So, now what?"

Winnie shrugged, playing with her binkie in her hands. "I could try and find you?"

"Yeah," Johnny agreed thoughtfully before shaking his head when he remembered something. "Wait, no - you'd cheat and use your nose!"

She gave a small, wolfish smile. "When's Mavis coming down? Is she still ill?"

The red-head shrugged. "I dunno. Last time I saw her she wanted to get some rest..."

"Oh," Winnie said, looking kind of disappointed. "She said that the next time she was here she'd do my fur for me."

Not wanting her to be too upset, Johnny quickly intervened. "Well, I could always go upstairs and see how she's doing...I mean, she might be feeling better now." He hoisted himself out of the pool and grabbed a towel from a nearby deck chair so that he could dry himself off - something told him that Dracula wouldn't like it if he dripped on the hotel's clean floors. "How about you get a bite to eat, and I'll check on Mavy?"

Winnie nodded as she stood up, giving him a small smile before sticking her binkie in her mouth and heading towards the buffet table.

 _Aww...she's a cute kid,_ Johnny thought to himself, also standing up and heading to go inside. He hoped his wife was feeling better, because she really was missing out on some fun stuff lately - that, and he was concerned for her well-being of course.

 _It's nothing,_ He told himself optimistically as he headed for the elevators. _Probably just a passing sickness. It's gonna go away soon._

* * *

_I'm not. I can't be, so I'm not._

She splayed her fingers out against her stomach, as if a bulge would suddenly appear.

_Besides, we're so young...we've got hundreds and hundreds of years to go. We have all of these places to travel, things to see._

Mavis bit her lip softly as she thought, wondering what she was meant to do; it would probably be best to tell Johnny, considering that it was kind of his fault she was now stuck in this situation. But, thinking on it, she just couldn't do it - not yet...it was too soon, and she didn't want to freak him out or anything.

It wasn't as if neither of them wanted kids - no, of course they had, what with Johnny being from a large family and Mavis just wanting a family in general after being raised by her father single-handedly for years, but this...it was _too_ soon.

For one thing, they'd only been married for three years - sure, it seemed long at the moment but her parents had been together for far longer before she was expected... Again, how were they meant to continue their travels with a baby?! A tiny, defenceless baby that needed caring and nurturing at all times. It was a huge commitment, and not one that Mavis was not quite sure about just yet.

It wasn't as if she was worried about not loving the baby or anything - she was sure she would once she wrapped her head around the whole idea - but rather that...well... What if she was a bad mother? She didn't know anything about raising a baby, for God's sake! Playing with kids for an hour or so - sure, that was fine. But having her own baby and being in charge of it?

That was too scary for Mavis to think about.

The door to the hotel room opened, and she jolted up on the bed just as Johnny walked into the room. _Ah no... What am I meant to say?_

"Hey," Johnny greeted, sending her a grin. He had a towel around his shoulders, and it was obvious by the damp spots on his bathing suit that he'd been outside in the pool. "So, how you feeling, Mavy?"

"..I'm Fine," Mavis managed, hoping that he'd believe her.

But, being married for three years, of course he would know when something was up. "Nah, you're not," Johnny disagreed, grin fading as he sat down on the bed next to her. "You look really sad, Mavis. What's the matter?"

"Nothing," She lied through her teeth immediately. "I'm just...well...tired."

Johnny didn't look convinced and raised an eyebrow at her worriedly. "You've been saying that for days...and then you've been getting sick. Something's not right, okay? I can feel that it's not." When she didn't say anything, he put one hand on hers and gave her a serious look. "You can tell me anything, Mavis. We're zings."

The serious look was enough to show Mavis that he was worried - he only ever had that expression if he was _really_ panicking about something (usually related to someone that he loved).

She knew that he had a point, and it tumbled out before she could stop herself.

"I think that I'm pregnant."

For years to come, Mavis would wish that she had a camera or something to capture his facial expression - it was something that would never fail to amuse her when she thought back on it. Then, however, she didn't have the time to find his reaction funny because of how nervous she was.

Johnny's eyes widened and his mouth dropped so widely open that it practically hit the floor. "A _baby_?! Like...a _baby_?" Mavis sent him a look, and he tried to close his mouth. "Wait, so...you _might_ be pregnant? Not definitely?"

"Not definitely, no," Mavis agreed unsurely. "I mean, there's got to be some other reason why I'm throwing up and getting cravings and...all of that...I mean, I took some tests just in case, and they all were positive but...hey, they might be faulty, right?"

There was a moment where neither of them spoke, and they just looked at each other - in that moment, they both seemed to realize that the possibility of it being due to pregnancy was more and more certain.

Johnny blinked, as if confused for a moment - and then he slowly begun to grin. "Awesome."

"It's not awesome!" Mavis snapped testily, suddenly angry. "We're having a baby for crying out loud! Holy rabies...a baby..." She stood and started to pace anxiously. "Holy rabies, it's a baby...I can't do this, it's too much!"

"You can't?" Johnny asked, looking rather crestfallen. "But I thought that...you know, we were going to have kids-"

"Not now!" She gritted out, shaking her head. "When we're older and like my Dad, then yes - but not now! What are we gonna do?"

The red-head sat down on the bed, looking into the air in front of him thoughtfully. "A baby - you know, that's not usually taken as bad news, Mavis, bringing a new life into the world...heh, it actually sounds kinda cool when you think about it."

Mavis stopped pacing to stare at him long and hard. "You can't be serious," She muttered in disbelief. "Johnny, we've been married for three years! I'm only a hundred and twenty-six, I can't be a Mom!" She flopped onto the bed and buried her face in her hands. "I can't do this...I just can't..."

"But this is a good thing," Johnny tried to assure her weakly. "I'm not mad or anything if that helps - heck, I think that it's pretty great!" Here, he gave a goofy smile. "We're gonna be parents: that's gonna be epic!"

But Mavis didn't seem to think so; instead, she just continued to fret anxiously. "We can't do this, Johnny, we just _can't:_ we have so much to do, a-a-and I just..." She took a deep breath and turned away from him. "I can't deal with this..."

Johnny bit his lip and sighed before standing up - Mavis clearly needed some time to get her head around the idea, and he himself had a lot of thinking on his part to do now (after all, in less than nine months he was going to be a Dad- and, crap, did that scare him!) so he made his way to the door. "I'm gonna just...let you breathe," He muttered quietly, hand resting on the door knob. "Uhh...if you want, I'll be by the pool again."

* * *

The sun was nearly due to come up, and yet Mavis didn't move from her position by the window of her bedroom, looking out at the brightening sky with worried eyes. From behind her she heard the door open and shut, and then the sound of sneakers pattering across the carpet. "Uhh...Mavis? Maybe you should move."

She didn't respond, instead training her eyes on the forest surrounding the castle.

She heard her husband sigh slightly. "Look, I really don't see how-"

"Just leave it," Mavis muttered, finally shutting the curtains to the window and moving to sit down on the bed. "It doesn't matter."

"Exactly," Johnny agreed, sitting down opposite her and grabbing her hands clumsily. "I mean, lots of couples have kids; look at my parents! They had seven of us!" There was a long silence between them; Johnny's smile slipped from his face. "You don't want kids, is that what you're saying?"

"No, of course not!" Mavis answered somewhat tearfully, lifting her head up to look at him properly. "I just...it's too soon. We still had so many places to visit - I wanted to go to Hawaii again..."

"And we will go," Johnny assured her quickly, really not wanting her to start crying. "We'll just take a little break, just until...until _they_ don't need us anymore." At the word 'they' he couldn't help but look down and gesture at Mavis' still-flat stomach. On instinct she covered it by folding her arms over it and hunching over. The red-head couldn't help but feel slightly disheartened by her reaction. "Alright, fine. I guess it's a lot to take in."

Mavis just gave a tiny nod. "I'm...scared. I know it sounds weird, but I just...I don't want to ruin things."

"Ruin what?" Johnny asked, raising an eyebrow.

Mavis hesitated for a moment; and then she remembered that Johnny was her zing. She could tell him anything and he wouldn't judge. "Us. I mean, I love you a lot and I know you love me too, but a baby is...a big thing." She looked down so she didn't have to meet his gaze. "Having a baby would change everything, Johnny; we wouldn't have time to just be us, to be together like we are now. We'd be tired all the time, and we won't have time for each other...look at how tired Wayne looks all the time." She looked back up at him, studying his face for a reaction. "Don't get me wrong; I really wanted us to have kids...but just not yet."

The two vampires sat in silence for a moment, unsure what else to say. Finally Johnny straightened up and said, "You know what? I'm scared too. I mean, I've had enough experience with babies to know that they're difficult work to take care of." He gently squeezed her hand tighter, causing her to look up at him. "But I think we'll be alright. It's just another step forward, right?"

Mavis gave an unsure nod, not completely convinced yet. "Yeah. I guess so."

"And, Mavis," He smiled at her brightly, gazing at her lovingly. "Trust me. Having a baby is going to strengthen our relationship; we're gonna need to help each other out, right?"

Mavis just gave him a tiny, curious smile. "So...You're excited? Not upset or anything?"

Johnny snorted. "Are you kidding me? I grew up with six brothers - a family is something I kinda want." Mavis leaned forwards and pressed her lips to his in relief, wrapping her arms around him. He grinned into the kiss, hugging her back.

When they pulled away, however, Johnny's smile slipped of his face quickly, leaving the other vampire confused. "Johnny? Are you alright?"

"Your dad is gonna kill me," He muttered, eyes going wide with fright.

Mavis rolled her eyes slightly at this. "I don't see why; I'm not one hundred and eighteen anymore - I mean, I'm a fully grown vampire and I'm married!" This didn't seem to reassure him, so she tried a different tactic. "I - personally - think that he'd be happy; he loves kids, and he's good with them. And I'm pretty sure he'd like an excuse to throw a party for me again - he hasn't done it in a while."

Johnny, finally gaining some composure back, nodded hopefully. "Yeah, I suppose you're right..." He gave her another grin, a sparkle in his hazel eyes. "We're having a baby."

"Yeah," Mavis said, smirking a little. "Unless all five tests I took were wrong, then we're having a baby."

"Awesome," Johnny muttered, ducking down to kiss her again. "Just checking."


	2. Telling Dracula

"Your dad is gonna kill me."

"Johnny, I think that you're over-exaggerating-"

"Have you not seen him, Mavy?! He threatened to suck my blood out before our wedding; what the heck's he gonna do when he hears that we're having a baby?!"

Mavis just leaned against the wardrobe, arms folded and looking amused. "We've been over this before, Johnny: he likes kids, and he'll be happy to hear that he's gonna be a Grandpa...oh, wow, that makes him sound so old!"

"Yeah, and that'll just make him angry!" Johnny insisted anxiously. "Look, it's like in the movies: the dad finds out that this handsome dude got his beautiful daughter pregnant and - BOOM! He gets killed!"

The dark-haired vampiress bit her lip to stop herself from laughing: she may not have grown up with an in-depth knowledge of movies but even she could tell that this was over-exaggerating quite a lot.

"Why are you laughing, Mavis? It's not funny!" He gave a gulp. "He's gonna hate me - marrying his daughter is one thing, but..but getting her pregnant... Oh man, I'm screwed!"

"My dad won't kill you," She repeated, shaking her head again at how silly he was being. "For one thing, it's not like _I'm_ a baby anymore, so he can't exactly tell me what I can and can't do. Secondly, the fact that we're married will make it better to him-"

"Woah, really?" Johnny asked, looking surprised. "Huh."

"He's very much into the old-fashioned 'wholesome happy family' idea," Mavis agreed. "Third, even if he _did_ try anything - which he won't - then I'll be there; if I get in the way, he'll stop in case he hurts me. Johnny, I know my dad: he _loves_ kids of all kinds. Just look at how he is with Winnie-"

"But not the other pups," Johnny pointed out.

She rolled her eyes slightly. "Well, he's not as fond of the others because they're nothing but trouble and mess up the lobby: that's just how male pups are. But I'm pretty sure that most other babies aren't as extreme as them - he'll love this one...I mean, it's his grandchild for crying out loud!"

The red-head seemed to think it over for a few seconds before nodding. "Alright. Sure...and I guess we can't really keep it a secret from him forever, right?"

"Well, me getting bigger and then a baby popping out would be a give-away, yeah," Mavis said wryly. "So the sooner we tell him the better."

Johnny nodded in agreement - it wouldn't be too soon, and so he could relax for the time being.

* * *

"TONIGHT?!"

Okay, maybe it had been sooner than he thought it would.

"I thought that we agreed to tell him as soon as possible," Mavis told him in a somewhat confused way. "That way we could give him time to get used to the idea before it happens."

"Yeah, but this is...it's too soon!" Johnny tried to convince her, looking absolutely crazy. "Mavy, I only found out _two nights ago_ about this baby - _our_ baby! _I_ still need to get used to the idea, let alone telling _him_ \- Count Dracula, in case you forgot!" _Oh man, that sounds even worse than just, 'telling my father-in-law' - Count Dracula._

_Dude, if I live to see another night after this then I'll be the luckiest idiot in the world._

"Dad will be fine with it," Mavis said for what felt like the hundredth time. "We went over this yesterday: it's his grandchild, I'm his daughter and he likes kids. The worst he'll do is maybe faint or something - but he won't attempt to kill you. Besides, I won't let him."

Johnny, despite being terrified, gave a small grin. "Aw, thanks Mavy. I love you too."

"Oh no, it's not to do with that," Mavis scoffed, shaking her head. "For one thing, I know Dad would be mortified if the baby grew up without a father being in the picture. Second, it's all your fault for getting me pregnant, so if you think that by letting Dad kill you then you won't have to do anything for me or the baby, then you've got another thing coming!"

* * *

While Dracula did love his hotel, not all of the work was fun to do; for example, paperwork was one of the more boring tasks he had to complete. It was even more difficult when guests and friends kept on knocking on his office door and interrupting him.

He sighed as he shut the door behind him; a skeleton guest had been complaining about their room, and he'd had to sort it out for them. He wanted nothing more than to sit down, even if it was to do some stupid paperwork...

Just as he sat down in his chair, however, to finish off the papers, there was a loud knock on the door.

"What?" He shouted, quite annoyed now. "I am trying to work! If you have a problem, please see one of the zombies down-"

"Dad, it's me!"

Dracula knew that voice anywhere. He straightened up, irritated scowl disappearing entirely; moving quickly, he race back to the door and flung it open. His daughter was standing there, smiling at him happily, with Johnny stood next to her looking quite nervous about something. "Mavy!" He exclaimed, clearly pleased to see his daughter. "I'm sorry, my little bat, I didn't realize it was you! Come in!"

The couple entered Dracula's office, and as he turned around he swore he saw them shooting nervous looks at each other.

"What can I do for you two?" Dracula asked, shutting the door behind them and moving to stand in front of them so he could watch them both eagerly. "Is everything alright?"

"Of course," Mavis said quickly, not wanting him to panic too much. "No, it's just that...that Johnny and I have some news that we want to share with you." At this, she smiled at her husband and wrapped an arm around his waist; he smiled back nervously before looking at the older vampire.

Dracula's welcoming smile disappeared. "It's not bad news, is it?"

"No! It's actually pretty good news," Johnny answered, grinning slightly as he remembered what they were about to tell. Then he remembered that this _was_ Count Dracula that he was talking to, and that it _was_ his wife's father who could rip him to pieces.

"Well, what is it?" Dracula questioned, somewhat impatiently. After all, he didn't have all night to stand around, even if it was to talk to his precious Mavy-Wavy.

Mavis smiled radiantly, baring her fangs at her father. "Well, we're having a baby."

"You're gonna be a Grandpa, Drac!" Johnny added in case he didn't get the message.

Dracula froze on the spot, blue eyes widening with shock. "A...a baby?" He repeated, eyes trained on his daughter entirely. "You?"

She rolled her eyes slightly. "Well, duh!"

The famous vampire blinked and slowly lifted his finger to point at his son-in-law. "And you? It is your baby?"

"Well, I hope it is," Johnny laughed, nerves getting the better of him once again. "'Cause that'd be weird to explain."

"Aren't you excited?" Mavis asked, sounding slightly disappointed at her father's lack of enthusiasm.

Dracula's eyes snapped to her as he regained his thoughts and straightened up on the spot. "Of course, Mavy!" He agreed quickly, flashing her a quick smile. "I'm just...surprised, especially since you two are so...so young. You've only been married three years, after all!"

"Yeah, well, it was a bit of a surprise," Johnny admitted, and Dracula glared at him slightly. "I mean, we're both excited! Definitely!"

"Look, Dad," Mavis started, drawing her father's attention back to her. "What he means is that we know we're both young and at first it was...a bit of a shock. But after we thought about it, we just...we can't wait!" She smiled at him hopefully. "Are _you_ happy?"

The Count thought about it hard and started to shift through all of his feelings. It wasn't that he wasn't happy, it was just...thinking about how grown up his daughter was, now having her own children, made him feel quite old for a start, and emotional at how much she'd grown up over the years. Oh, he couldn't help but glare at Johnny even more - after all, for his daughter to get pregnant...

"I totally think he's gonna rip me apart," Johnny whispered in a not-very-quiet-at-all whisper.

Dracula cleared his throat, trying to rid all unpleasant thoughts about how this child came to be out of his head. "No," He lied, not even trying to hide the fact he wasn't being exactly truthful. "The thought, it never occurred."

"So, you're happy?" Mavis checked, raising an eyebrow.

At the hopeful looks on both of the younger vampires' faces, he had no choice but to give in and smile. "Of course, my little ghoul! A baby...that is...wow." He started to imagine after this child would be born; reading them bedtime stories, chasing them while they giggled around the corridors loudly, singing to them and making them laugh... "But you will let me help, right?"

Mavis laughed, throwing her arms around him joyfully and pulling him into a bone-crushing hug. "Of course you can help, Dad!"

Johnny grinned at his father-in-law and nodded in agreement. "By the way, dude, you're gonna make an awesome Grandpa!"

Although Dracula wasn't quite sure he liked being called an 'awesome Grandpa', he knew it to mean a compliment and gave a small smile to the former human. "Thank You, Johnny."

Even if Johnny _had_ gotten his daughter pregnant, he supposed that he wasn't all that bad; now he had another little child in his life to help look after, to teach new things to. Yes, he decided, hugging his daughter back and smiling even more: he was positively ecstatic to have another little bat in his life.


	3. The Age-Old Question

Such a simple, closed question: the answer was one or the other - it shouldn't have been a reason to bother, really.

Boy or Girl?

First of all, for Johnny and Mavis this was somewhat of a tricky question anyway: vampires didn't show up on photos and so therefore didn't appear on sonograms either - so, really, they had no way of telling until the baby came out. Second of all, the question, 'Boy or Girl?' could also mean 'which do you prefer?', and, really, neither of them really minded.

But apparently, everyone else seemed to.

"I bet it's going to be a girl," An old gremlin lady cooed, patting Mavis' bump affectionately one night.

Her husband snorted. "With a kick like that? No, it's a boy, you wait and see!"

A passing yeti monster winked at Johnny. "Just what a man needs, right? A son to pass all of that knowledge onto; to play sports with! To go exploring with!"

"Clearly it's a girl," A fly argued, looking quite exhausted and annoyed. "If it was a boy then she'd be carrying lower down: that bump is too high for it to be a male baby. Still," He leaned his head closer to Johnny. "Always another go, I suppose."

"Well I actually-"

Eunice happened to pass down the corridor at that moment and immediately joined the conversation. "It's a girl!" She proclaimed loudly, pulling Mavis into a protective embrace away from the other monsters. "And a girl is not a bad thing! I mean, with any luck she'll look just like her mother! No offence, Johnny!"

"None taken," He shrugged.

Mavis pulled herself out of the flesh-golem's embrace and rolled her eyes at everyone. "We don't know what it is yet," She stressed for what felt like the millionth time in the past few months. "And we won't know until the end of October - a whole four and a half months away! Besides, we don't really mind if it's a boy or girl," Here looked at her husband, who grinned and nodded in agreement. "As long as they're healthy and all that...does it matter?"

At first Dracula had seemed to share this attitude - he even took to glaring at any guests he caught asking the couple about the gender...oh, and don't even get him started on the whole incident of when monster reporters had come to ask! Geesh, and he'd thought he and Martha had it bad before Mavis arrived!

But it appeared that, deep down, even the infamous Count Dracula couldn't help but wonder.

"Imagine if it's a girl!" He sighed blissfully, smiling to himself as he relaxed one evening. "Just like my little Mavy."

"Uhh...Dude?" Johnny said suddenly, waving his arms at his father-in-law. "I'm kinda sitting right here."

The Count just gave a small laugh. "Of course, of course..." But he still continued to smile to himself stupidly. "But surely you understand, Johnny; a baby girl! There really is nothing greater!"

Johnny stopped drinking his blood beater and blinked. "Wait...really?"

Dracula gave a nod and smiled knowingly at the former human. "Don't get me wrong, Johnny: a son would have been just as amazing! Someone to teach everything to, to play _real_ bat-tag with...but from the moment I knew my little blood orange was a girl, I knew that I wouldn't have had it any other way."

"Huh." Johnny seemed to be reflecting in thought, and moved his chair closer to Dracula's. "Sorry, it's just that in my family we only ever got boys...it's kinda like a curse," He joked. "All seven of us were boys; my brother Matt has a son - and probably another on the way - so a baby girl is kinda like...not something we've had in the family for a while. Actually..." He paused and counted in his head. "All babies in my family have been boys for five generations now - the only girls are, like, married into it."

The older vampire sent him a slightly funny look. "I see...so are you saying that the baby will be a boy for certain?"

"What? No!" Johnny quickly backtracked. "I mean, like, a girl would kinda be like a miracle!...I mean, not because it's impossible...a girl would be a miracle anyway!...A boy would be a miracle...A _baby at all_ is a miracle!"

Dracula suddenly gave a chuckle and clapped his son-in-law on the shoulder. "I'm only kidding, Johnny! Don't worry; either is fine by me!"

"Oh...right. Heh..."

* * *

But, truthfully, it was starting to get to the parents-to-be as well; around the five month mark they had taken a trip to visit Johnny's side of the family (a last time before being tied down by parenthood, that was) - and it was clear that Johnny's family were just as eager to hear as the monsters in the hotel.

Of course, the moment Johnny and Mavis stepped foot in Johnny's parents' house Jean was hugging them tightly.

"Oh, it's so good to see you!" She breathed, hugging her son close to her and pressing a kiss to his cheek. "It's been too long...And Mavis! My, you look _wonderful_!"

Mavis laughed and hugged her mother-in-law tightly. "Thanks, I guess."

Jean eyed the growing baby bump with great interest. "May I...you know?" The vampire nodded, and Jean placed her hands on the bump as she grinned. "They're getting big," She commented, rubbing at the bulge affectionately. "How many more months?"

"About four."

"Mom, they're not even born yet - you don't need to spoil them just yet!" Johnny joked, although he too put a hand on his wife's stomach and rubbed with a smile on his face. "They've been kicking a ton, right Mavy? You should feel them during the day when we try sleeping - they go totally crazy!"

"And I suppose there's no chance of finding out the gender?" Jean questioned in a somewhat hesitant way, training her eyes on the two. "Because that would make buying the gifts a lot easier."

Mavis sighed and shook her head. "No, unfortunately. Trust me, it's driving us crazy too."

"Hmm...well, a surprise is always nice too." The woman took her hand away from the daughter-in-law's stomach and eyed her son with a beady eye. "Now, Johnny - I expect that you're looking after Mavis, correct? Because the last thing a pregnant woman needs, human or vampire, is to stress."

"Oh, trust me," Johnny snorted. "I've tried helping but she just gets moody and yells."

That particular comment had put him in 'the doghouse' for a few days.

* * *

"So?" Mavis asked one night, flopping next to her husband by the pool. Her bathing suit was stretched to its' limit to accommodate her growing baby bump, and it wouldn't be much longer until she wouldn't be able to wear it anymore. "Boy or girl?"

Johnny shrugged. "Are we making a bet here or talking about what we'd like?"

"What we'd like."

Johnny tilted his head back and watched the sky thoughtfully. "Dunno. I guess I've never really thought about it...I mean, as long as he or she is healthy," He added quickly at the look on his wife's face.

Mavis put her hand on her baby bump and started to stroke it in thought. "I guess. I'm not too picky."

"It'd be cool if it was a girl though," Johnny mused, chuckling slightly to himself. "It'd be the first girl born in my family for years...I mean, Matt and his wife told me they're expecting another boy, and then there's me and all my brothers..."

"Not because you want a girl then?" Mavis teased.

"It's not that," The red-head muttered quickly. "I was just saying. Look, either is awesome with me – as long as they're not deformed or anything."

"I highly doubt they will be," The female vampire said, amused. Johnny just shrugged again – after all, they weren't going to scans or anything to check. "Anyway, you never told me which one you'd actually like better."

Her husband looked down at the pool, kicking his feet in the water. "I _did_ tell you. I don't care...Hold on!" He looked up and smirked at her. "You didn't say which one _you_ 'd prefer...Which one would _you_ like?"

Mavis smiled slightly to herself. "Honestly? I kind of agree with you...but if I _could_ choose," She continued quickly when her husband opened his mouth to protest. "I'd probably choose a girl."

Johnny stared at her for a moment, an unreadable expression on his face. "Why?"

Mavis shrugged. "I don't know. I just...I think it'd be nice to have a daughter to play with and see grow up. I mean, you can talk to them properly, gossip a little when they get older...Boys are great, don't get me wrong, but I'd just prefer having a baby girl."

There was a short silence between them; a couple of the younger wolf pups jumped in the pool, splashing the two vampires with drops of water but neither of them said anything. "I think I agree with you," Johnny finally said, flashing her a smile and showing off his fangs. "A girl sounds adorable."

"Come on," Mavis decided, pushing herself forwards and into the pool. "Auntie Wanda told me that swimming is good for when you're pregnant – maybe it'll relax the baby so that they kick some more for us."

Johnny slipped into the pool after his wife eagerly, grinning and chasing after her in the warm water.

* * *

Dracula had been standing with Frank, Wayne, Murray and Griffin outside of his daughter's room for hours now - he desperately wanted to be inside there with his baby girl, to try and stop her from screaming; he would have done just that if his friends hadn't stopped him immediately.

"Of course she's in pain," Griffin commented, probably rolling his eyes slightly at his friend. "It's a baby."

"I'm sure Martha was like this when she had Mavis," Wayne commented, scratching his ear a little; he'd left his eldest children in charge of the younger ones by the pool. Whether the pups stayed behaved was an entirely different matter, but right now he had to be there for his friend. "I mean, Wanda wasn't too different - the screaming and pain goes away once the baby comes."

"She's a Dracula," Frank continued assuringly. "She'll be able to get control over it soon."

"Besides," Murray finished, putting a sandy arm around the Count. "She's got Johnny, right?"

Dracula pushed the mummy's arm off of him with an unpleasant look on his face. "I know - that is what I'm worried about."

There was no more time for assurances, because Mavis could be heard letting out one last cry - this cry was then replaced immediately by the sound of a newborn crying loudly as it entered the world. Dracula shot upwards, eyes widening as he listened. "It's...It's over..."

"Congrats, Drac!" Frank bellowed cheerfully, slapping him on the back hard and nearly sending him flying. "Hard to believe you're a Grandpa, huh?"

"Geez...that makes _me_ feel old," Griffin muttered in distaste. "Still, Congratulations buddy! What do guys you think it is?"

Murray rubbed his hands together and grinned. "I bet on it being a boy; if I win this, I'll be able to get the upgrade on my pyramid!"

"Who cares about your pyramid?" Wayne asked eagerly. "If it's a girl then I can go on an extended vacation! No kids, no work..."

Griffin gave a snort. "If it's a boy, I'm using the money to go abroad; I've gotten so pale recently..."

Dracula blinked: strangely, he hadn't actually asked himself the question on the gender at that moment, more focused on making sure that everything had gone smoothly. "Well I-"

"C'mon, guys," Frank started, rolling his eyes. "Let's be serious here...it's got to be a girl! Women don't get _that_ big if they're having boys!"

"You can't tell just from the size of a stomach!" Murray argued.

Wayne sent him a sharp look. "You probably could, especially since it's only one baby."

"It's a boy."

"Girl."

"Boy!"

"Girl!"

 ** _"Alright_**!" Dracula snapped irritably, silencing his friends immediately. "Enough already! Someone from inside that room will come out and tell us soon, okay? So stop all of this..." He paused and then narrowed his eyes. "Hold on: you were betting on the gender of my grandchild?"

As if right on cue, the door to Room 174 opened; Johnny stepped out, still dressed in pyjamas and looking exhausted - but there was suddenly something different about him, at least to Dracula. He was holding himself taller, much taller, instead of slouching, and the happy-go-lucky grin on his face seemed to have been multiplied by a hundred as he looked around at the group of monsters.

Good Grief, Dracula thought to himself: this young man - someone whom he had tried to get rid of at first, a somewhat immature and way-too laid-back young man who had married his daughter - was a _father_.

Johnny's eyes lit up and he grinned even wider at his friends; even without the question being asked, he knew what to say.

"It's a girl."


	4. The In-Between Times

Most people - and monsters - were quite under the impression that once you had a baby, having more was a piece of cake; that any future pregnancy was now a piece of cake.

In actual fact, it's somewhat more difficult - especially so if you were a vampire that went by the name of Johnny.

He loved kids - honestly, he did - but pregnancy wasn't exactly easy on him; the first time Mavis had been pregnant...well, sure, she had gotten moody and had cramps...and oh yeah, there were the weird cravings! Boy, did he remember those nights! But now that it was the second time...

Lucy had been two months shy of her thirteenth birthday (and looking no older than a human toddler, Johnny noted) when Mavis broke the news to her husband at the end of August; the first thing that he had done when he'd found out was start yelling and jumping around - clearly, he hadn't grown up all that much over the years, and was still a child himself at heart.

But then the pregnancy _really_ kicked in.

Along with the nightly routines of feeding, cleaning and bathing the child they already had, the two vampires were now also having to deal with side effects of the second pregnancy: this included Mavis waking up with cravings halfway through the day when the sun was still out, and Johnny waking early in the evening before the sun had set to Mavis suffering from 'morning' sickness.

And yet, that wasn't the worst of it.

The words 'I think there's something wrong' are never a good thing to hear - it's even worse when they come from someone close to you, and it's the _worst_ when the person talking to you is your worried pregnant wife.

One could easily understand why Johnny immediately stiffened up, eyes wide with worry as he looked at Mavis when he heard this sentence come out of her mouth. Lucy didn't even look up, blissfully unaware that her father was distracted from their game. "What? You mean with the baby?"

Mavis looked away, blue eyes trained on their small daughter on the floor. "I think so."

"Well...what makes you think that?" The red-head asked, trying to relax a little - if something _was_ wrong (and he severely hoped it wasn't) then he needed to try and remain calm for both himself and his wife.

"I just...I feel so ill," The dark-haired vampire muttered, woozily lowering herself onto a chair. Her hands rested on top of her swollen stomach, stroking it worriedly. "More ill then I did before...I mean, I shouldn't be throwing up still...and my stomach just _hurts_."

Johnny frowned to himself, unsure of what to do. Lucy looked between her two parents, picking up on the slight tension in the conversation, and reached her arms out impatiently for one of her parents to pick her up. "Cuddle?" She requested, blinking her wide blue eyes hopefully. Johnny reached over and did so before standing, knowing that Mavis properly wouldn't want to try standing up yet, what with the pregnancy and such.

"I think we need to call your Dad," He decided slowly, thinking hard. "Or is there a monster doctor we can go to? I don't think a human one would...err...quite understand as well."

"I guess there is," She murmured, sighing slightly. "There's probably a nurse or someone at the hotel that we could ask..."

"Or Wanda. She's had, like, tons of kids," Johnny added helpfully, just as his daughter decided it would be fun to start tugging at his hair. "Ow! Ow! Ow! You've got quite a - ow! - strong grip there! Ow!"

Lucy just giggled loudly, pulling even harder.

"I know it's messy," He managed, sending her a jokey grin. "But you don't need to - ow! - try to pull it all out, missy!"

"Come play?" She requested, her grip loosening slightly.

Knowing it was the only way to stop her from pulling out every hair on his head, Johnny nodded quickly - he needed to finish this conversation with Mavis anyway. "Yeah! Just give me a sec, alright?"

He put Lucy down on the floor and she crawled away to prepare for the future play session. Parenting duties put on hold for now, Johnny turned back to Mavis and sat down opposite her in another chair. She looked like she was about to burst into tears, and he gave her a grin to try and cheer her up. "Don't worry about it," He said soothingly, reaching out and grabbing her hand in his; he squeezed it tightly, hoping that some of his hopefulness and optimism would rub off on her. "Seriously - go and take a nap. You're probably just tired or something - I mean, we've got Lucy already, and she's definitely no angel..."

"Maybe you're right," Mavis agreed, trying to smile but instead showing a grimace instead.

Johnny helped her stand up, careful as he could be, and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. "I'll call Wanda at some point," He promised her assuringly. "Just in case. But it's probably just stress or something, so don't worry, Mavy. Worry is bad for both you and the baby, remember?"

"I know," She said, rolling her eyes slightly at her husband. "You keep on saying that, Mister Expert."

"I had three little brothers growing up," He defended. "I just know...like I know everything will be okay now. Now, go get some rest before you collapse or something."

Of course he wasn't exactly one hundred percent sure that everything would be okay - he wasn't a doctor, after all, and he could barely remember his brothers being born besides a few scraps of shaky memories. But, as he often thought to himself, a little optimism wouldn't hurt, especially in this case; if it calmed Mavis down even a little bit, then it would be doing some good for her and their baby.

"Johnny? I think our daughter's getting impatient."

Johnny snapped out of his thoughts and nodded; he could put aside all bad thoughts for now and play with their daughter for a little while. It wouldn't hurt to put off the phone call an hour or so, especially since distracting Lucy would hopefully take some pressure off of Mavis. "On it! Now, go and rest before I have to force you."

Luckily, Johnny had been right when he'd said everything would be okay - although the possibility of this prediction being wrong had worried the couple enough to contact not just Wanda but also Dracula, Johnny's mother and a monster doctor who'd been staying at the hotel for a few weeks. During the end of February their second baby was born - this time a son who they named Jack.

"Holy crap," Johnny muttered a couple of hours after the second baby had been born. "Mavis...we have kids...as in, like, more than one. _Kids,_ " He repeated, stressing the 's' on the end of the word.

"You know, I do have eyes," Mavis muttered, rolling her eyes tiredly - but she was too blissful to feel completely annoyed.

Johnny grinned as he looked down at their son in his arms. "Aww man...Hey! He got lucky - he got your hair and not mine!" He ruffled the tiny tufts of hair softly with his finger, careful not to disturb the baby. "So...one boy and one girl. Pretty good, right?"

"Very even," Mavis agreed amusedly. "Very...perfect. Does this mean that I'm done with the whole pregnancy thing, or...? Not that I hated it or anything, but...it was a pain in the ass."

Johnny paused and shrugged; while he did indeed love having a family, he was in no way prepared to have seven kids like his parents had. "Well...I guess so, for the moment at least. I mean, we've got two cute kids who are perfect...heck, everything's perfect! Why ruin it, right?" He smiled at his wife happily. "Nah, Mavis. I think we're good."

* * *

"So...I guess now would be a good time to say that I'm pregnant."

Johnny, being from a large family, had barely blinked when she'd blurted it out one morning before they went to sleep - although when he spoke he did seem kinda surprised. "Again? Well, I totally didn't see that coming..."

Mavis was sure she would have blushed at his comment if she could have. "Yeah. So...another baby."

"Another couple of decades of crying and screaming," Johnny joked, giving her an easy grin. "I just didn't think there'd be such a big age gap if we had another one, you know?" Although, having said that, there was about fifteen (human) years between his eldest brother and his youngest one, which was pretty big for humans - he still didn't know what the vampire equivalent would be. "You're happy, right?"

Mavis nodded. "Of course! I mean, it does mean we have to put off traveling again for a while...but we could probably go on holiday next year anyway, so it's not that big a deal. You?"

"Mavy, I grew up with six brothers - three kids aren't even half of that," He laughed, eyes bright all of a sudden. Something told him he wouldn't be sleeping much that day, and he doubted Mavis would as well after such great news. "I guess there's only one thing for it now..."

"I'm not betting on the gender of the baby!" Mavis couldn't help but roll her eyes at such a suggestion. "I mean, does it really matter?"

"No," Johnny amended quickly, knowing now that because his wife was pregnant he had to be extra careful not to annoy her. "Of course not. But it's still fun to do, you know?"

She didn't have to know about the betting he'd done with her Uncles at the hotel - it was all a bit of fun between monsters.

During the months that followed, this pregnancy proved to be surprisingly easy really; maybe it was because Lucy and Jack were that much older that they didn't need constant looking after (although, Jack did sulk a lot whenever the baby was mentioned), and so there was only really one issue that bugged the couple until their newest child arrived.

"We need a name," Mavis stated, nudging Johnny to stop him from falling asleep. "Come on, Johnny! You're not getting out of it that easily!"

He gave a groan but opened his eyes anyway. "Alright, fine...which are we gonna do first? Boy or Girl names?"

Since neither of them had any idea on any names, regardless of gender, they decided to flip a coin; it landed heads, and so they pondered over boys' names first.

"Well...we _could_ use Joseph," Mavis suggested tentatively, cautious not to upset Johnny. "You know, after your Dad?"

The mention of his late father, who had passed away a few decades ago, made the red-head feel somewhat nostalgic. "Hmm...I guess so. Seems kinda weird for a vampire baby though...besides, it's kinda cheesy to name after a dead relative."

"That's true," Mavis agreed, nodding her head - that was why they had made 'Martha' Lucy's middle name instead of her first one. "Alright, let's forget about boys' names then; how about girls names? I kinda like Alice, after Alice in Wonderland...although, that is kind of a weird story..."

Suddenly, Johnny shot up in the bed and started to grin. "Hey! I've got one!"

Before she could ask, she felt the baby kick her and gave a wince. "Ow."

Johnny dropped back down into a laying down position and put a hand on his wife's baby bump with a soft look in his face. "Okay, kiddo! No need to get so excited - you might not even be called this, so stop trying to bruise your Mommy."

"Well, what's the name?" Mavis asked curiously.

The red-head smiled triumphantly. "Mina."

"Mina?"

"Yeah. I was re-reading _Dracula_ by Bram Stoker - you know, just 'cause it's so different from how your Dad actually is that it's kinda funny - and it's the name of one of the main characters," He explained excitedly, speaking so quickly that it was becoming slightly difficult to figure out what he was saying. "Anyway, I looked it up, just to see, and it's perfect!"

Mavis didn't look sure. "Perfect? Really?"

"I think it's perfect," He amended, snuggling up so that there was no room between them anymore; if the baby kicked, then he'd be able to feel their movements immediately, just the way he liked it. "It means 'love', Mavy - literally! How cool is that?"

Admittedly, it did seem rather cute, and it was starting to grow on Mavis more and more. "Alright," She agreed, giving a small nod. "If it's a girl, then it's Mina. Now all we have to do is sort out a boy's name."

Johnny gave a groan and moved away, flopping into his pillow: at the rate this was going, the baby was going to have to be a girl or go nameless.


	5. Old

Having children meant one thing - yes, you weren't exactly a young teenager anymore but you weren't by any means old: you were actually pretty young still, considering how long a life span lasts.

The word 'grandchildren', however, told a completely different story.

"Mavy, I'm not old enough to be a grandpa!" Johnny whined, pouting slightly. "I mean, I'm only...how old am I now?"

"Well, do I look like a grandma to you?" Mavis retorted, staring into the depths of the vanity mirror deeply - all for nought considering she didn't even have a reflection. "I mean, sure, I've had a grey hair or two but...but I'm not that old!"

These reactions were, of course, brought on by the news that their eldest, Lucy (now grown up herself and married) was having a baby of her own; the news had surprised many of those in the family - but none more so than their youngest child, Lily.

Oh Lily. She couldn't be blamed for reacting so badly: after all, she _was_ a human and aging quicker than the rest of them - a side effect of the difficult pregnancy that Mavis had endured twenty-nine years prior to the current time. Another unfortunate side effect had been that Lily had been left completely and utterly infertile, forever shattering her dreams of becoming a mother and living a somewhat normal life while she could.

The thought of how unhappy she'd been that afternoon made Mavis sigh and sit back onto the bed beside her husband. "I hope Lily will be okay."

Johnny frowned at the change in subject but gave a tiny, guilty nod. "Huh. Well...yeah, she probably will be, right? I mean, she's gonna be an aunt - that's pretty cool! At least she'll get to be around kids..."

"Being an aunt and being a mother are completely different things," His wife pointed out, shaking her head. "Sure, she'll love this baby...but it won't be _hers_. It's her sister's."

She had a point - Johnny had been an uncle to his older brother's sons before becoming a father, and he had to admit that it _was_ very different; don't get him wrong, he had loved his nephews and adored playing with them...but then having a daughter of his own to play with, knowing that she was _his_ daughter - half of him and half of Mavis in one tiny person - was by far the greatest feeling he'd ever experienced.

Silently his heart went out for their youngest daughter, and he wished that there was something he could do to help her out.

"Great, now I feel sad about Lils _and_ old because I'm gonna be a grandpa!" Johnny groaned, letting his head fall backwards to his pillow - except he'd seriously misjudged where his pillow was and ended up hitting the back of his head off of the headboard. "OW!"

Mavis ignored this last part and continued to dwell on her thoughts for the time being. "I can't believe it; I don't feel like I'm ready to be a grandma. I mean, I still can't believe that I'm so old that we have kids, let alone _grandchildren_."

Ignoring the throbbing in the back of his skull, Johnny sat up and sighed. "Yeah...although, you gotta admit, it's something to look forward to. Heh, apart from the whole being old thing, I think being a grandpa might be pretty cool!"

However, she didn't look too sure and instead turned to face him seriously. "Johnny? Do you still think...well...that I'm attractive?"

Johnny blinked at her, as if unable to believe his ears. "What?"

"Are you still...you know..." If she could blush, this would have been one of the times that she probably would have. "Attracted to me? Like, do you... _desire_ me?"

That sounded so wrong coming out of her mouth that she had to try very hard to resist the urge to face-palm herself.

Her husband grabbed her hands in his and sent her a look that implied he thought she was slightly crazy for asking. "Yeah!" He agreed enthusiastically, nodding to prove his point. "What are you, nuts?! Just 'cause we're not in our one-hundreds anymore it doesn't mean that you're not beautiful!" Here he moved closer and looked at her seriously. "Do I need to show you how much I love you? 'Cause I'm totally up for that..."

"Maybe later," Mavis gave in, looking somewhat brighter than she had moments ago. "We're still talking about grandchildren right now."

Johnny nodded and pressed a kiss to her shoulder. "Later," He agreed, voice slightly lower and eyes dilated. "So...grandchildren... Yeah, I'm looking forward to that; grandchildren are awesome, you know? You can play with them and do all the fun stuff - and at the end of the day, you don't have to do all of the parenting stuff, like diaper-changes."

"You said the same thing about being an uncle," She reminded him, smirking just a little to herself. "And look how many diapers you had to change then."

"Still, it's gonna be great!" He repeated, grabbing his wife's shoulders and grinning widely. "C'mon, Mavy: you've gotta be excited!"

"Well, yes," Mavis agreed half-heartedly, giving a slight nod of the head. "I'm really happy for Lu and Freddie, I really am. I just...can't believe it! Seems like only yesterday we were teaching her to fly, and now she's having kids of her own."

"Yeah...although," The red-head's smile slipped slightly. "I still have my doubts about that Freddie kid..."

The vampiress lightly slapped his shoulder and rolled her eyes in annoyance. "You are just like my Dad, I swear! Freddie's a great vampire - you just don't like him because he's married to our daughter! And don't start going on about how old they were when they met," She added when he opened his mouth to object. "Lucy has always been very smart; a night-dreamer, perhaps, but smart."

Being compared to Count Dracula - who really was starting to get on quite a bit as both a grandfather and future great-grandfather - made Johnny feel old again, and he let out a grumble. "Alright, you've got a point I guess...Hey!" He brightened up suddenly. "What do you think?"

Mavis gave him a look, eyebrow raised curiously. "What do I think about what?"

"If the baby is gonna be a girl or a boy, duh!"

"You are _not_ going to start betting on the genders again!" Mavis said, looking quite outraged. "It was bad enough to do it with our kids, let alone _their_ kids!"

It didn't matter what she said though - once his heart was set on it, there was no changing his mind.

* * *

Valentine's Day was, in short, miserable that year.

"I love Lucy, I really do," Johnny muttered, looking rather exhausted as he and Mavis prepared to go to bed for the day. "But she's not all that great when she's pregnant."

Mavis gave a small nod, looking equally tired out. "Poor Lucy; she looks about ready to burst. It can't be easy for her, being that large; it means she's stuck at home, unable to fly, and always getting back aches. I remember that, and it's not fun."

"I'm actually feeling kind of sorry for that Freddie kid," The red-head announced, giving a large yawn and flopping into bed. "He's not doing much better than she is; he's getting glared at, and he keeps breaking stuff every five minutes."

"Poor Freddie," Mavis agreed sympathetically. "He just doesn't want Lu to stress herself out, so he's trying to do everything for her...although he's just stressing her out _more_ by breaking everything in sight."

Johnny rolled over to look at Mavis and put an arm around her. "Mavy? Valentine's Day is officially my least favourite day of the year right now."

"It hasn't been very romantic," She sighed, relaxing in his embrace. "Everything we planned went to waste, didn't it?"

"Tried to have a nice calm evening by the pool; Freddie slips and falls in trying to help our daughter get out properly with her bump, and the life-guard ends up having to drain the pool to get him out," Johnny recounted miserably. "Our romantic dinner was ruined by _all_ of our kids; Mina coming to tell us that Jack had pulled her braids, and then Jack turning up and stealing her doll... What did he do with it anyway?"

Mavis gave a small smile, despite the situation. "He chopped off it's head because Mina stole a picture he had of some siren girl he saw - someone he had a crush on."

Her husband sighed. "Yeah, that's right. Then Lily and Damien started arguing right across the hall, which disturbed, like, everyone...and _then_ Lucy walked in and completely killed the mood with that look on her face..."

"In all fairness, she's pregnant," Mavis pointed out. "She's got to be really tired, Johnny; it's only natural."

"Well, it's her own fault for getting pregnant," He muttered. At the look his wife gave him, he back-tracked quickly. "Aw, come on! It is!"

Mavis was too shattered to even send him _that_ look for very long and instead shut her eyes in the hopes of getting some sleep. "This is our hotel trip for the month ruined," She mumbled.

"Worst Valentine's Day ever," Johnny agreed, also closing his eyes as he snuggled into her.

It seemed like only five minutes later that there was an urgent knocking on the door of Room 174, waking the two vampires from their slumbers.

Mavis gave a small groan and shoved Johnny off of her. "You go get it. It's probably Mina."

Right on cue, there was another series of knock on the door. "Mom! Dad!"

"Why do I have to go?" Johnny complained, pulling the covers over himself tightly. "You're the one that had the kids."

Even with his eyes shut, he could _feel_ the intensity of the glare she was giving him at that moment. " _You're_ the one that got me pregnant in the first place; go and do it."

It didn't seem fair to Johnny, but he didn't want to have a fight with Mavis, not at this time in the day when he was meant to be sleeping, so he stood up to answer the knocks on the door just for the sake of being able to sleep afterwards.

"Alright, Mina," He mumbled as he opened the door, blinking down at his daughter blearily. "What's the big deal? It's late, and you should be asleep-"

"Lucy went into labour!" Mina interrupted breathlessly.

Mavis was by the door in a second, and both of the adult vampires seemed to have woken up completely by those four words. "What? How do you know?" She asked hurriedly.

"I couldn't sleep," Mina started quickly, bouncing on her feet. "So I went to Lucy's room to see if she could braid by hair me - Lily and Damien must have been asleep already, 'cause when I went to their room they didn't answer - and she couldn't sleep either so she said she'd help me...oh, and Freddie held my doll for me..." She held up her still-headless doll for her parents to see. "Anyway, we were talking and Lucy suddenly started to get pains in her stomach...she's having contractions! The baby's coming!"

"Holy crap!" Johnny exclaimed, looking quite freaked out all of a sudden as he turned to look at Mavis. "What do we do?"

She rolled her eyes and moved to push past him to the door. "What else are we going to do? We're going to go and help her!"

"We can't go in there while she's having the baby," Johnny said, looking appalled at the suggestion. "Besides, no offence to her, but I don't...really...want...to go in there...and see it."

"Me neither," Mina agreed, pulling a face. "Can't we just sit outside and wait like normal monsters?"

A hundred and thirty-two years prior, Dracula and his friends had waited outside while Johnny and Mavis had their first baby - and now it was their turn to wait while their daughter had her baby. They, along with Mina, were shortly joined as the afternoon went on by Jack, Damien, Freddie's Uncle Al, who worked down in the kitchens of the hotel, and Dracula - Lily was, as predicted, absent from the gathering.

Since waiting for a baby to arrive took up to hours of patience, Jack and Mina began to continue the argument they'd been having for the past nine months.

"It's a boy," Jack stated.

Mina shot him a glare. "It's a girl."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Mina, I know what I'm talking about - it's gonna be a boy."

"Well, you're wrong," Mina muttered coldly, grip tightening on her doll. "It's going to be a girl."

Damien hesitantly leaned over to the two of them. "Err...can I say some-?"

"Boy."

"Girl."

The blonde flopped back in his seat. "Never mind."

Mavis just shook her head at them. "To think; Jack is nearly a hundred and nineteen, and Mina is eighty-nine...and they're actually arguing over this."

Uncle Al just shrugged. "Kids will be kids - plus, I suppose it passes the time."

"Do you want me to chop off any more heads of your dolls?" Jack threatened.

Mina just smirked unblinkingly at her older brother. "Joke's on you, Jack: I actually kinda like their heads being cut off. It's like having my own little set of Henry the Eighth's wives as dolls." She lifted the one she had with her up. "She _used_ to be called Marie, but now I might call her Anne Boleyn."

Johnny looked between the two of them, his expression somewhat disturbed as he leaned over to talk to Mavis beside him. "Mavis? We have the weirdest kids ever..."

"Well, it makes them happy," She reminded him.

The red-head gave an understanding nod. "Huh. Guess so."

Luckily the wait only lasted another couple of hours or so until eight o'clock that evening - and then it was all over.

Freddie came bursting out through the bedroom door, tripping on a rug in the corridor; Mina, knowing what to expect, stood up and managed to steady him before he could fall to the floor easily.

"Heh...thanks, lil' bat!" He thanked, straightening up and looking around at everyone with a grin.

Uncle Al leaned forwards in his seat. "Freddo, what news?"

"Yeah, Freddie," Mina added in. "What is it?"

There was a long pregnant pause where everyone stared at Freddie in anticipation, waiting for him to break the tension in the corridor.

"It's a baby!" Freddie announced stupidly.

Dracula slapped a hand over his face while Johnny tried unsuccessfully to hide his laughter, only for Mavis to nudge him (although, judging by the smirk on her face, she was also highly amused). Damien let out a snort and covered his mouth with his hands to hide his own chuckles, and Mina gave a heavy sigh at her friend's obliviousness.

Jack meanwhile just rolled his eyes. "No, you idiot: is the baby a boy or a girl?"

"Oh!" Freddie paused. "Err...Let me check."

As he hurried back into the room, Johnny grinned at everyone. "Well...I gotta give it to this kid: he doesn't even care what the baby is, so long as it's a baby."

"As opposed to what?" Dracula retorted tiredly, raising an eyebrow at his son-in-law. "A dinosaur? A hearse perhaps?"

Jack gave a large grin. "Well, in Lucy's case it really could have been judging by the size of that bump."

"And you wonder why you don't have a girlfriend yet," Mina said bluntly, sitting back down in her chair and folding her hands together on top of the doll in her lap. "Always so charming, Jack."

Since everyone else was distracted Johnny looked at Mavis and took her hand, starting to slowly smile at her. "Mavis? I'm a grandpa now."

"And I'm a grandma," Mavis realized, pretending to be horrified to try and make the situation slightly less sad - after all, this was good news. "Rabies...I feel old... _we_ 're getting old."

"Nah," Johnny disagreed, resting his head against hers. "We're not old just yet - not inside, anyway."


	6. Baby Bats

"Poor Mina," Mavis observed.

Johnny gave a nod; the two were watching their daughter playing with her dolls in the hallway unenthusiastically from the doorway, and he couldn't help but agree with this statement. "She's gotta be lonely," He guessed. "I mean, Lucy left, then Lily...and now even Jack's left too. She must be feeling pretty left out."

Her siblings were all grown-up before she was: Lucy was married with a kid already and lived a couple of miles away, Lily - now thirty - also married and living a short distance away, and now Jack had gone as well. Mina was, in short, the only child left.

And she looked miserable about it.

"It sucks that she doesn't have someone to be around," Mavis continued. "I mean, sure, she's been close with a few monsters - but that's the point: Freddie's with Lucy, Damien's with Lily, and most of her friends she makes at the hotel won't be back until the Summer."

"Yeah, but she has her dolls," Johnny pointed out.

His wife just shook her head. "Dolls aren't a living companion."

"Hmm...Hey!" The red-head grinned as an idea formed in his head. "I might have something we can do!"

"And?"

He grinned even wider. "Let's get a puppy, duh! A dog would make her feel way better!"

Mavis bit her lip unsurely. "Yes...but the thing about dogs is that sometimes they freak out around monsters. Remember that time on the beach in Portugal?"

"Oh," Johnny frowned slightly. "Right. But that was a big adult dog; a puppy would be a lot friendlier...plus, if it's a puppy then it could probably get used to...whatever it is about monsters that makes them freak."

"It's a great idea," Mavis assured him. "But maybe if we used a different pet instead? Something...smaller, so that Mina could keep it in her room and look after it herself. Something that she'd love to look after."

And then it hit them both like a freight train.

* * *

Mina raised an eyebrow at her parents and crossed her arms. "Are you both feeling okay? You're never this secretive... Ah, come on! Please tell me that you're not having _another_ baby!?"

Johnny gave an awkward cough and put an arm around her; she merely gazed up at him with a stony expression, clutching her headless doll under her arm seriously. "Well, guess it's only right that you know..." He took a deep breath and sent her a happy grin. "We got you a pet!"

Mina's mouth fell open in shock and she dropped her doll. "A _what?!_ "

"A pet," Johnny repeated, bending to pick up the dropped toy.

"Do you want to meet him?" Mavis asked, smiling at Mina. Mina just nodded speechlessly, unable to comprehend what was going on. "Come on, he's waiting in the living room for us."

Neither Johnny or Mavis had had pets growing up - not exactly - and so it was both amusing and heart-warming to see their sixty-one year old daughter reacting to getting a pet of her own.

Mina put her doll on the couch and taking a step closer to the cage in front of her; it was small - but clean, she noted - and the latch was securely in place. She stopped in front of it and got down onto her knees to try and peer into it better: inside was a tiny black bat, rolling around in the cage while flexing its wings, and it opened its eyes drearily at Mina.

"He's beautiful," She cooed in awe, a smile lighting up her face. "Wait...is it a boy?"

"Oh, yeah," Johnny told her, nodding to her. "At least, we think so."

"We found him out in the forest," Mavis continued, looking somewhat sad. "His mother wasn't there, so we had a fly around to see if she was nearby...we found her a few miles away, and she'd been attacked by a wild animal."

"That's horrible," Mina stated, looking shocked. "You poor thing!" She tentatively pushed her finger through the bars of the cage towards the bat; he looked at it for a second before opening his mouth and giving her an affectionate nip with his tiny sharp teeth. "He likes me! Say, lil' fella, do you have a name?"

The bat blinked at her and wrapped his talons around her finger tightly before shutting his eyes.

"That's fine," She assured him. "I'll give you one. How about we name you...Edgar?"

Johnny blanched for a moment. "Edgar? What kind of name is Edgar?"

Mina looked at him over her shoulder icily. " _His_ name, Dad. I'm naming him Edgar after a poet I read about in Grandpa Drac's library because it sounds poetic and dignified." She turned back to her new pet and immediately melted. "How old is Edgar, Mom? Does he still need milk?"

"I'm not a bat expert," Mavis pointed out but decided to hazard a guess anyway. "He can't be any older than a month, so I'd say so."

The young vampire gave a final nod and stood to pick up her cage. "Thank You, guys!" She exclaimed, sending them small smiles. "He's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen - I promise that I'll look after him no matter what!"

"So...you like him?" Johnny checked - for him, bats weren't exactly the most normal pets. Then again, having said that, nothing had been particularly 'normal' in the human sense since becoming a monster.

Mina nodded. "Yes, of course. I love him already - don't I, Edgar?"

Edgar gave a small high-pitched noise from his cage in what could possibly have been agreement - it appeared that he was as taken with Mina as she was with him.

* * *

"Mom? Edgar's not home yet."

Mavis gave a frown and looked up from her magazine. "Isn't he? It's nearly sunrise - he's got to be tired by now."

Mina - who looked rather tearful and unlike her usual self - shook her head. "No. I let him out tonight first thing so that he could go for his usual fly and hunt some scorpions - he was meant to bring me one back!"

"Well, I'm sure that he's fine," Mavis tried to assure her; although, she was starting to worry just a bit. The bat was Mina's closest thing to a constant best friend, and she dreaded to think what her daughter would do if something happened to the bat.

The young vampire hesitated for a moment. "Mom? Could I not...maybe go for a quick fly? Just to find him-"

"Mina, it's not safe," The older vampire said immediately and firmly, putting down her magazine. "If he gets caught out in the Sun, it's not so bad for him - he'll get upset, sure, but he won't _burn_...you seem to forget that you've been burnt enough as it is."

Mina felt guilty all of a sudden but tried to shake it off. "But...But Edgar-!"

"He's probably curled up in a tree, sweetie."

Her daughter shook her head again. "What if something's happened to him, Mom? What if he got in a fight, o-or something attacked him? I can't just leave him out there on his own!"

"Well you can't just go out this late in the evening," Mavis retorted, but she appeared to be softening up all the same. "I'll tell you what; if he's not back by tomorrow evening then all of us will go out to look for him. Okay?"

But he didn't turn up the following evening, nor the evening after that; Edgar seemed to have vanished into thin air. Mina was inconsolable when he didn't return, and even more so when any and all searches for her beloved pet showed no results either. It broke Mavis and Johnny's hearts to see her so upset, and they could only hope that Edgar would come home soon.

And then, remarkably, he did.

A week had passed before Edgar flew in one day while they were sleeping; when Mina woke up and saw him perching by the window that night, she had let out an excited yell that woke up her parents from down the hall and nearly terrified her bat to death.

"Where have you been, huh?" Mina cooed, opening the door of his cage and helping him inside. "Don't do that again, Edgar, you scared us so much!"

And everything was normal again - until about five weeks later.

"Hey, Dad. Mom," Mina started, walking into the living room; she was holding Edgar's cage and frowning rather confusedly. "I think something's wrong with him."

"Wrong with him?" Mavis asked, raising an eyebrow.

Mina gave a solemn nod. "He's gotten...fat. And tired and weak. He won't move as much as he used to - he won't even fly around anymore."

Indeed, Edgar _did_ look rather round; he looked like a furry puffed-up baseball, if Johnny said so himself, and it was no wonder that Mina looked rather worried. "Huh," He said simply. "Maybe he's...got...bat flu or...something? Maybe?"

Meanwhile, the cogs in Mavis' head worked at an intense speed as she started to realize just what might be going on. "Johnny?" She asked slowly. "How sure are we that Edgar is a male bat?"

Mina frowned but Johnny's mouth fell open as it reached him too. " _No_... Edgar can't be a girl-bat... You said he was a boy."

"Well, I only got a quick look," The blue-eyed vampiress defended. "I didn't see you asking about it then."

"Hang on," Mina interrupted, looking somewhat shocked. "Are you saying that... _Edgar_...?"

It looked like a new arrival was on the way soon.


	7. Gomez

Mina grew up too quickly for Johnny and Mavis' liking - it seemed like only months later she'd grown up and decided to start travelling, like her parents had done and told her about. Just like that, the couple were left alone - almost exactly like they had been before, except now they were of course much older.

"Well this is just great!" Johnny grumbled miserably as he flopped into bed that night. "I mean, Lucy's married with kids, Jack is pretty much a recluse, Mina is travelling...and Lily is...well, gone..."

"Jack is not a recluse," Mavis scolded, preferring to ignore the last point - it was still a rather sore topic between them, even all of these years later. "He just prefers to read instead of going out."

The red-head sighed and closed his eyes. "I feel old," He whined. "Like really old. Mavis, don't you realize?" She raised an eyebrow at him. "We've had four kids, two son-in-laws and three grandkids...That makes us _old_."

"We're not as old as Dad is," Mavis pointed out, as if somewhat in denial. "He's way older and doing okay. We have nothing to worry about."

Johnny gave a small sigh and looked up at his wife. "But we are old, Mavy - at least _older_. Like...remember the good ol' days? No kids, no problems...just the two of us, travelling the world and being in love..."

"Now the kids are a problem?"

"Nah, I didn't mean it like that," He added. "I just meant...when was the last time we actually had a week to ourselves without children, grandchildren or stuff? The last time that we got to be together without worrying if Jack had killed Mina, or if Lucy had snuck out again? And now..."

Now that he mentioned it, he did have somewhat of a point. Mavis shrugged to herself. "Now we're alone - years ago we would have killed for that, but now..."

"Now that they're all gone, it's empty," Johnny finished miserably, and Mavis could tell that he was somewhat unsure of what to do now that they didn't have the kids to run after. "Mavis, what did we do before the kids? I mean, apart from going around the world - we must have done something."

"We did," Mavis agreed, somewhat sly. "We watched movies, flew around outside...and of course there was the sex, which lead us to actually having kids..."

Johnny gave a slightly flustered smile. "Hehe, yeah...Good times..."

"Even the sex was different," His wife continued, enjoying herself as he became more and more embarrassed. "We could be...I dunno... _loud_ , like as loud as possible, and...and it was spontaneous!"

"More often too," Johnny agreed, giving a slight nod. "Yeah, I guess you can't really be loud with four kids sleeping in the house; that probably would have been a giveaway." He paused for a moment. "Spontaneous?"

She gestured uselessly with her hands as she tried to explain. "Yeah; it wasn't planned, it was whenever. Once the kids came along, it kinda had to be planned to fit around them - feedings and all of that. Not to mention..." She stopped, ducking her head but smiling nonetheless as she said it. "Well, we weren't really _careful_ back then either."

"What're you talking about?" Johnny questioned, frowning slightly. "We used protection-"

"Most of the time," Mavis interrupted, smirking slightly and patting her stomach in memory. "After all, we ended up with Lucy at some point after that period, didn't we? Besides, that wasn't exactly what I meant..." When he continued to look clueless, she gave a small cough. "Remember the vase in the hotel room in Italy?"

_Oh._

Johnny gave a small splutter, and for a moment it looked liked he'd managed to blush. "But...I mean...that wasn't...you're the one who started that one!"

"Anyway," Mavis hurriedly said, changing the subject. "Back on the subject of Mina; she'll be back in January for her birthday - you know how she loves Dad's parties - so we'll see her then. And as for the rest of them..."

"Hmm...they'll either not speak to us for months or never leave us alone," Johnny agreed, nodding his head. "No in-between on that one, huh?"

* * *

When Mina had announced she was coming home, of course Mavis and Johnny had been thrilled; while seeing her grow up and be an independent monster made them proud, they really did prefer having her around. So it was with anticipation and excitement that the two found themselves with their granddaughter, Sam - who they had adopted into their family after the death of both Lily and Damien - waiting outside to finally see Mina again.

What they didn't expect was this.

"Mom, Dad! Hey, Sam! How you doing? Oh, right...Guys, this is Gomez!"

Johnny instantly felt sick; he'd become accustomed now to what daughters bringing boys - or men, as this case was - home meant, and the fact that this was _Mina_ only made it worse.

The man in front of them was older than Mina and quite a sight to behold; he was dressed in a red silk shirt and sensible trousers that looked both expensive and simple. He was grinning beneath a moustache, keen brown eyes bulging slightly - but not in a terribly unattractive way - and turned to look at Mina. "Ah, darling, I see where you get your good looks from."

Johnny opened his mouth. "Hang on a min-"

Mavis interrupted by elbowing him painfully in the side; clearly she was telling him to not say anything in front of Mina. "Hello, Gomez. It's nice to meet you."

"No, the pleasure is all mine," Gomez brushed off easily, taking a step forwards; he took Mavis' hand in his and gave it a small kiss in greeting. "Mina really does like to talk of you and your husband, you know; she thinks you're both terrific!"

Johnny glared at him with narrowed eyes. "Yeah, well...could you stop kissing her hand?!"

While his wife shot him a hard look, Gomez chuckled and stood up straight, putting an arm around Mina's waist. "You must be Johnny: Mina adores you! Apparently, from what I can tell, she thinks you're one of the best dads out there."

"She...she does?" The red-head tried not to sound or look so surprised when he trained his eyes on Mina.

"Oh yes," Gomez reiterated seriously, sending him a confident grin. "Never stops talking about you in particular..." He turned to Sam, who had remained surprisingly quiet throughout this. "And who's this little cutie?"

Sam put her hands on her hips and raised a blonde eyebrow at him - she was still rather wary around strangers, no matter how nice they seemed, thanks to her experiences in life. "I'm Sam," She introduced, staring straight up at him.

"One of my sisters adopted her years ago," Mina explained; her smile slipped for a moment as she leaned closer to the man next to her. "You know, Lily? The one I told you about?"

Gomez gave a small nod of understanding. "Ah. Well, Sam, it's nice to meet you too; you know, the first few times I met your Aunt here, she wouldn't stop going on about how much she was worried about you?"

"Worried?" Sam repeated doubtfully, turning her unsure gaze on Mina.

"You wouldn't believe it, but I can assure you it's true: she thought you'd be pretty lonely all on your own - not that your grandparents here aren't great company, of course."

The girl gave a small and rare smile. "Just so you know, Mina's not my aunt - and Mavis and Johnny aren't my Grandpa and Grandma: they're not like that to me." When he simply looked befuddled, she gave a small laugh. "They're my family but not like that...it's a really long story."

"So," Mavis started, putting a hand on Sam's shoulder. "You know, I'd like to know how you two met."

Mina gave a small and knowing smirk. "I met Gomez in Puerto Rico - he's been living between there and the states for years - and he's travelling with me."

 _Huh, maybe they're not...together...oh God, that even sounds wrong..._ Johnny thought. _Probably just travel buddies, I can live with tha-_

"Oh, our romance didn't begin nearly that simple," Gomez added. "I was engaged to a nice little water nymph up in New York - arranged marriage between families and all - and I went home for the weekend. I step off the plane and who is the ravishing beauty I run in to? This little minx!"

_A minx. I am going to kill him._

Mina didn't seem nearly as bothered as Johnny was by this comment. "You flatter me too much," She laughed, shaking her head.

"Anyway, just one look and I knew I was a goner," The moustachioed man continued grandly. "Wasn't easy breaking off the engagement - my parents weren't having that - so we-"

"Saw each other behind their backs?" Mavis asked, looking somewhat amused and...she looked like she was enjoying the story! "That's so romantic..."

Sam pulled a face to herself. "Eww," She whispered under her breath so no one could hear her.

 _That a girl, Sam,_ Johnny thought in agreement.

Gomez smiled at Mina lovingly. "Yes. In the end, I managed to break it off with the water nymph quite smoothly; turns out that she didn't want to live on land, and I didn't want to live in the water so we called it off. It all worked out quite well in the end, if I do say so myself."

"Yes, you did rather well," Mina agreed, brushing her hand against his face and raking her nails down his cheek affectionately before turning to her parents. "Did you know that Gomez comes from one of the richest monster family branches in America? He learnt all kinds of interesting things growing up; sword-fighting, playing musical instruments...he and his family even take part in charity events for orphaned monsters every year."

"Really?" Mavis asked, quite impressed; she couldn't help but look down at Sam, who had been 'orphaned' twice thanks to the unfairness in the world.

Gomez looked down modestly but smiled anyway. "We donate a few of our items to auctions, that kind of thing; last year I took a trip to Russia to help place some of the kids in new homes. Money and all that is great, but...well, there's nothing quite like the things I saw up there: the joy and love created in families, you know?"

"That's actually so amazing," Mavis stated, unable to believe it - she was unable to comprehend what such an experience would actually be like to get to watch first-hand. She imagined it would be amazing, but probably more so than she thought it would be.

"Hold on a minute," Johnny interrupted, giving the man in front of him a rather nasty look. "You were engaged? To another woman?"

Mavis and Mina both sent him rather cold and sharp glares while Gomez gave a nervous chuckle. "Yes, well...like I said, it'd been arranged by our parents - that still happens in old-fashioned families such as ours, you know. But as soon as I met your daughter, I knew that there was no way I could go through with it."

As the conversation continued and moved indoors, one thing was for certain: Johnny did _**not** _ like this Gomez character.

* * *

"He's so...so..."

"Suave?" Mavis prompted, raising an eyebrow in a rather unimpressed way. "Sophisticated? Charming? Perhaps charitable?"

Johnny gave a small moan. "No!...Yes...But that's not the point! He's so...he's older! I mean...Mavy, he has a moustache! He's gotta be, like Lucy's age by now!"

"Hardly," Mavis shook her head; she understood that fathers were overprotective but this...this was ridiculous. "Besides, does it really matter? Mina's happy with him, that's clear, and he seems taken with her too."

"Of course he would," Johnny mumbled. "Young girl like her, travelling alone; she's like...like...prey! Prey for guys like that!"

The dark-haired vampire sat back against the headboard and watched him pace uninterestedly. "You know, you've said this about Freddie; you've said this about Damien, and now you're saying this about Gomez. Mina likes him, and as her parents the best we can do is accept that - besides, he seems like a nice guy. Very polite and friendly."

"He's...but..." The red-head spluttered, at a loss for words. "Mavis, he called her a ' _minx_ '! Do you get what that means?!" When she just continued to look at him coolly, he gave a small frustrated groan. "He basically said she was a tease! Our daughter!"

"And?" Mavis questioned, not quite understanding what the big deal was.

Johnny started to tug at a tuft in his hair anxiously. "He _likes_ her in _that_ way! Our daughter!...He thinks she's...she's..."

"So he thinks that she's attractive," Mavis dismissed. "Surely that's good, right? That he thinks she's attractive; that's usually a great starting point for a relationship, if you ask me."

He sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. "No! She's not old enough for that kind of thing, you know?" He shook his head to himself. "No, no...a minx is, like, flirty and...and _sexy_ and...and that's not Mina, okay?!"

Mavis suddenly understood what exactly was bothering him about this young man - and as much as she agreed, it definitely wasn't to the severity that Johnny was taking it to. "Look," She started slowly, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Mina's an adult- she's not a little girl anymore, Johnny."

"I know," Johnny mumbled stupidly. "I know...but it's just...whenever I see her I just remember that little kid...you know, with the gap between her fangs, headless dolls and that Martha-bat with her all the time. Not a...'minx'."

"I know what you mean," Mavis said sincerely, resting her head on his shoulder. "I know that it's hard...you weren't this bad with Lucy or Lily, though."

She didn't have to say it for her to know - the look on his face said it all.

_But this is Mina._

Mina was the youngest, the baby of the family for the majority of her years, and though there neither of the parents had favourites when it came to their children, there was no denying the intensity of the father-daughter relationship between Johnny and Mina. The very thought of Mina - the baby in his eyes, their baby - being an adult, independent and - dare they say it - _sexual_ being was by far the most disturbing thing that had ever crossed their mind.

"She'll be fine," Mavis told him quietly. "To be honest, the way they were tonight, I think she has him hooked enough that he'd do anything for her."

"I hope you're right, Mavy," Johnny sighed, leaning into her embrace: _after all_ , he added in his head, _that's the least she deserves._


	8. The Right One

Jack was - in short - awful with women. For one thing, he was bookish and keen to learn - he would much rather sit in the library reading than outside playing bat-tag with siblings or friends; this, and the fact that he often made a complete and utter bumbling fool of himself around attractive members of the opposite sex made it look more and more likely that he'd spend most of his life alone.

Of course, there were women who saw past this and he ended up seeing for a while - but these never lasted. Put simply, he'd been dumped more times than his Mom's Auntie Wanda had been pregnant, and they'd all been for different reasons too.

First of all, there had been Willow; blonde, curvy, older and highly attractive Willow. Jack had just turned hundred and twenty when she stayed at the hotel and he first laid eyes on her; she passed him in the lobby, giggling and smirking with her friends as she muttered, "Weirdo".

For some reason, Jack had been hooked from then on.

Eventually - with a lot of persuasion and embarrassing accidents on his part - she had pitied him and agreed to go out with him; lunch by the pool at midnight, candlelit dinner in the dining hall on Valentine's Day...Hell, they'd even actually made out a few nights in his hotel room! It was awesome!

But then it all came to an end; he walked down to the lobby one day and saw her sucking the face of a handsome chiselled vampire who couldn't be any younger than two hundred - a far cry from Jack, who knew he stood no chance against this guy. For the first time, his heart was broken and his morale low.

The second girl had been somewhat less embarrassing than the first; sweet and meek Beth, whom he met while searching around the library. She had been exactly the same age as him - a hundred and fifty-four - and it turned out that they both had a love of old art and history; the fact that Jack was the only grandson of _the_ Count Dracula, owner of _the_ Hotel Transylvania, was also another probable reason she found him as interesting as he found her.

This relationship was longer and much nicer than his week-long affair with Willow; after one month the two were at the point where they were on dates at least once a week, and she had been introduced to his parents. Two months lead to the words, "I love you" being said on a whim, followed by a few days of slight embarrassment around each other.

They were nearing three months when it happened: Beth zinged with a flesh-golem on the same floor as her.

It wasn't Beth's fault, Jack knew that: he knew that they hadn't zinged all along, and that their respective zings were going to come along eventually...but it stung all the same to watch someone he had cared deeply for going off with someone else.

The third time was during his week long vacation to Russia the following decade: at a party, a heavy-metal punk-like human girl had set her eyes on him and immediately decided that he was worth hooking up with. It was then that Jack had his first time - drunk, disorientated, and with an absolutely _crazy_ girl who couldn't have been older than twenty-five for her species. He didn't remember it at all; when he woke up the next morning naked next to the girl, he almost had a heart attack. Further inspection only confirmed his suspicions: claw marks all over his body, the smell of the girl on him...and, oh, the bite marks. For a human, she sure gave a bite, that was for sure.

There was an endless string of one night stands that he threw himself into after that; they were sparse, dotted everywhere throughout the years, and definitely far from what he supposed his sisters were experiencing with their partners. It got to the point where, twenty years later, his parents actually took him in to live with them for a short period of time because they were _worried_ about him and the amount of alcohol he was consuming at hotel bars after each encounter.

"What are we gonna do with you?" Mavis asked, giving him a small sad smile one evening as she walked in on him in the kitchen staring into space. "C'mon, drink your blood beaters and go out for a fly - that'll make you feel much better."

Eventually he'd managed to gain control over himself - so he'd messed up his first time, so he was rather alone and used to getting dumped: this wasn't who he was, nor who he wanted to be. He didn't need a girlfriend or wife to make him happy, he realized, because he had a loving family consisting of parents, sisters, and his Grandpa Dracula. No, he had a pretty good life - he just needed to stop shutting himself away in libraries with books all the time.

Besides, he thought with a smirk, it wasn't like his parents were short on grandchildren or in-laws at this point.

* * *

Mavis was _furious_.

For one thing, her eldest daughter had called her 'old' - which she wasn't, she would argue - and then Mina had refused to return her calls simply because of a small argument over the phone about how much longer she'd been travelling: really, six years was over-doing it slightly. And then there had been the phone call and meeting with the Monster Council regarding Sam...the main reason she was so angry.

"Mavy, calm down-"

"How dare they?!" Mavis fumed, starting to pace quickly up and down the walls. "We do _not_ need help looking after her - our own granddaughter - from...from... _them_!"

Johnny bit his lip, trying to shrug it off. "Well, they...they said it was in her best interests, Mavis... And it's just to help monitor how she's doing. They have to do that with adopted kids, human _or_ monster."

"It's like they don't trust us!" She ranted, outraged by this. "Besides, it's not to 'monitor' her or anything like that - they said that they're worried about her 'psychologically'! How dare they?! There's nothing wrong with her, and if there was then we could deal with it perfectly fine!"

There was no reasoning with her when she was like this, Johnny knew, but there was no point in just letting her rant and get madder and madder. "Mavy, come on: they've got to be careful with her, you know that. Like, think about what she's been through, a-a-and so young..." He gave a small shrug. "It's only to make sure she's fine. They probably do that kind of thing for...err...depressed adult monsters, right?"

In the end, it took a whole week for Mavis to come around - and even then, it was with complaints and annoyed eye rolls. Neither of them really wanted for the girl in their care to go through this, but - as Johnny had pointed out - perhaps it would be beneficial in the sense that she could recover from what she'd been through.

To be totally honest, Sam _had_ been experiencing a little trouble since being placed with Johnny and Mavis; while she had no problem with the two of them in particular or their living arrangements, she was still very fragile after both being abandoned by her birth parents and then her adoptive parents dying within days of each other - one due to old age, and the other due to suicide following this.

The Council's idea, however, of keeping an eye on Sam and 'monitoring' her was not at all as what she wanted: she'd seen councillors - trained ones for this kind of thing - after her birth mother abandoned her, and they had been nothing but intrusive and a waste of time. Sam had no desire, whatsoever, to meet with one of them again to discuss how she was feeling.

"Do I have to?" The child complained, swinging her legs and folding her arms.

Johnny gave a small sigh. "Yup. Sorry, kiddo: but... hey, it's only for an hour, right? Not long at all."

This didn't help to cheer her up. "They probably think that I'm going to go crazy and kill someone," Sam muttered darkly, pulling her new black cap - a present to get her to cooperate - down over her forehead. "Like that guy Jack told me about in a book; he went totally psycho and murdered hundreds of monsters-"

"They just don't want you to...be unhappy," Mavis interrupted, choosing to ignore this. "It's their job to make sure that you're safe and happy; they don't mean any harm."

The blonde gave a small groan and sunk down in her seat. "I'd rather be caught out in the sunlight while eating garlic bread than talk to them. Guys, do you know what kind of stuff they ask you in those rooms? It's all, _how are you feeling?_ , and...and... _It's all gonna be alright_. I'd rather be dea-"

She stopped talking quickly however, realizing what exactly she was saying. Judging by the looks on Johnny and Mavis' faces, however, it was too late; how senseless of her to say such a thing when these two - practically grandparents to her - had lost so much already?

"I'm sorry," Sam muttered lowly, immediately resting her head on Johnny's shoulder sadly. "I-I didn't mean that, I wasn't thinking..."

Maybe this whole counselling business would be a positive thing after all.

* * *

It was one of those crap nights in which Jack found himself tricked into taking Sam to see her counsellor-psychiatrist-person (he wasn't sure of the correct term at this point).

For one thing, it was pouring heavily with rain - anyone with bat wings knew how difficult it was to fly well with the rain pounding down so viciously, and he was no exception. Then there was the fact that he didn't _want_ to be sitting in a waiting room full of crazy monsters who all had something wrong with them; while he understood that, in certain cases, they couldn't help it...well, it didn't mean that he wanted to be stuck in a room with them.

To make matters even worse, this did _not_ look like the waiting room for counsellor-psychiatrists-things that saw kids like Sam - every other patient waiting was at least a hundred and eighteen, that was obvious...and he was just a tad worried as to why Sam was lumped in this category.

"So...So how long are you gonna be?" Jack asked nervously, training his eyes on a gremlin across the room; he was squeaking and giggling hysterically for no apparent reason, and his eyes were unnervingly big as they stared at him. "Like...half an hour? An hour?"

Sam gave a small shrug. "Dunno. Depends how long Dr. Gloom wants to keep me locked in for."

He couldn't help but grin slightly. "Dr. Gloom, huh? Is she really that bad?"

"What?" Sam asked, not blinking. "No. That's her name, Jack."

His parents had somehow - without remorse - convinced him to take Sam in for the week while they attended to help Count Dracula with some business at the hotel, and he had unwittingly agreed; it was only when said child announced to him that she had an appointment to attend that he got an indication as to what he'd been duped in to doing.

A monster with several heads (one of which was sporting bright blue eye shadow, and another had tribal tattoos) entered the room with a clipboard. "Samantha Stoker?"

Sam grimaced as she slid out of her chair, and Jack blinked. "Uhh...do you want me to come in with you, or...?"

"Nah," She dismissed quickly, waving her hand at him. "Dr. Gloom just talks to me alone; you can chill out here if you want."

Truth be told, Jack did not want to 'chill out' in the waiting room of the weird by himself and would much rather have been in a painful therapy session with Sam's weird-ass doctor...But Jack was a grown man, and grown men did not say these things out loud. Instead he grit his teeth together in a poor attempt at a smile and said, "Great. I'll be right here."

_Right here probably dead, that is._

The evening didn't improve; the session seemed to stretch on for hours and hours, and Jack just felt more and more awkward at being surrounded by so many out-of-place monsters without so much as a book to distract himself.

At some point he must have fallen asleep, since the next thing he knew was that he was opening his eyes and blinking around a near-empty waiting room; clearly, Sam wasn't done and the other doctors were busy. He wasn't sure if this was a good or a bad thing at this rate, but decided to distract himself by looking around again to see what else was different.

Luckily, the creepy gremlin had disappeared - although he was now replaced by a drooling fly that, Jack thought, looked rather like he'd been lobotomized. Beside him was a hairless werewolf who was curled up in a ball and muttering to himself anxiously, and a monster that was puffing away on a cigar so ferociously that Jack couldn't even tell what kind of monster it was from his seat.

"Makes you feel quite normal, doesn't it?"

Jack couldn't help but jump at the sound of someone next to him talking, a female from the sound of it, and quickly tried to regain his composure. "Err...yeah," He agreed, not looking at the other monster out of embarrassment.

He could hear the smirk in her voice. "So, what are you in for? Depressed? Psychotic? Childhood Trauma?"

"I'm here for my niece," He corrected quickly and just a tad sharply. "She'll be out soon."

"Alright, alright...geesh, I was only curious. Besides, not all of us have the luxury of not going mad, you know."

Knowing he'd been rude, Jack gave a sigh and lifted his head to look up. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I'm just real tired and-"

And he was sat next to an attractive vampire.

And he was sat next to an attractive _female_ vampire.

And he had just made an idiot of himself in front of her.

The girl gave a sly smile and turned her eyes on him. "And what? Cat got your tongue?" She'd barely finished that sentence when she immediately halted, looking surprised.

Jack just mumbled. "Well...I...err...and...umm...you see...well..." He gave an awkward cough and immediately drew his eyes away. "I'm sorry; I'm not good around girls...or women! God, saying 'girls' makes me sound like...like a creep-"

"Stop talking," The woman advised kindly, giving a small low laugh. "Look, let's start over; it'd be better for both of us involved." She cleared her throat and held out her hand for him to shake. "I'm Allie."

 _Allie_ was rather tiny (although Jack couldn't tell that much since she was sitting down) but looked to be around his own age, if not a decade or so younger. Like him, she had dark hair - although hers was a little ragged and down to her shoulders - and her eyes...holy crap, Jack's entire family had brown and blue eyes - even his sisters' partners and kids had blue or brown eyes! - but this girl had the most clear and vibrant green eyes ever.

When he didn't respond immediately, she furrowed her eyebrows in confusion; hurriedly remembering his manners, he took her hand and shook it. "Hey. I'm Jack."

"Jack. Well, Jack, you're probably wondering why I'm at this crazy lunatic place." It wasn't a question but a statement. Allie gave a small shrug. "Truth is, I'm nowhere near as bad as some of these people are, and for that I'm thankful."

Wary of offending her, Jack tentatively asked, "Right...So why are you here?"

"Long story short?" Allie gave him a sad subdued smile. "I overdosed on pills and followed it up with a bottle of witches brew; the brew was enough to kill anyone on it's own, let alone with the pills... And yet, here I am."

 _Huh_. "So you're here...for counselling?" He questioned carefully, and she nodded. "Well...I...That's not as bad as _some_ monsters, I guess..."

"How about your niece? If you don't mind me asking..."

Since there was hardly anyone around, Jack decided to go for it. "Well...long story short, my sister and her husband adopted her and they're both gone - as in dead - now. I'm not gonna go into great detail, but it's...it's messed her up pretty bad."

Allie seemed to understand that he was keeping it short and nodded. "Of course. If it helps, I wish her the best of luck in...well, I say getting better but by the look on your face, you don't agree that she should be here."

"Hmm...well...that's a story for another day," He mumbled.

Before he could say anything or else or attempt to change the subject, the door to Dr Gloom's office opened and a small blonde girl came bounding out quickly.

"Hey, Jack!" Sam exclaimed loudly, alarming some of the other monsters waiting. "Look, I'm free from the prison!"

"That's her," Jack added sheepishly before standing. "Well, it was nice talking to you." _Very nice, but...knowing my luck, this could go badly if I attempted to take it further._

Allie's smile faded and she looked disappointed. "Wait a minute; you're gonna go, just like that?" But he didn't have time to answer, for she simply smiled again and stood up, picking up a pen from the coffee table in front of her. "Here, give me your arm: I'll give you my number. Call me sometime, okay?"

As she scribbled onto his arm - which she seemed to have grabbed out of nowhere all of a sudden - Jack began to feel nervous; he'd made such progress, staying away from the drink and avoiding heartbreak that the prospect of it all going downhill - which he just knew it would - terrified him.

Luckily, she seemed to read his expression easily and smirked again. "I don't bite, you know; you can stop looking so nervous," She joked good-naturedly, pulling down the sleeve of his jacket. She then seemed to turn more serious and folded her arms as she looked up at him sincerely. "Don't worry," She said quietly. "I know what you're thinking; another chick wanting another hook-up? I get that with guys all the time - but with you?...Well...I get a different vibe from you."

And just like that, Jack fell in love, not for the first time by any means - but the first time he truly felt it counted.


	9. A Bit of Bonding

This being pregnant stuff was _really_ stressing her out.

It didn't matter that soon they'd have a cute little baby to care for and coo over - no, because Mavis was tired and sore and she couldn't even go out and fly anymore because of this baby; and since she couldn't blame the baby, she blamed Johnny.

"What? Why is it my fault?" He would ask.

Mavis would narrow her eyes at him and stroke her stomach loftily. "You got me pregnant in the first place; if you had remembered to use a condom or something, I wouldn't be in this mess."

But this was said rather jokingly; of course she was looking forward to being a mother - scared out of her wits, yes, but still looking forward to it. Having not had a mother of her own, though, Mavis couldn't help but naturally worry if this would affect how good of a mother she was to this baby; what if she did something wrong, like laying the baby down the wrong way in a crib? (Apparently, that was possible: they had to be left on their backs)

"Don't worry about it," Johnny said good-naturedly whenever she brought up these concerns with him. "C'mon, Mavy: you're gonna make an awesome Mom! It'll, like, come naturally when you hold them; that's what my Mom told me anyway."

"It's not so bad for you," Mavis retorted worriedly. "You can just ask your dad or my dad."

"You could totally ask my Mom," He pointed out, giving her a grin to calm her down. "She won't mind; heh, she'll like being asked about babies and kids - she had seven of them, right?"

Mavis watched her stomach for a moment, biting her lip in contemplative thought. "Hey, Johnny?" She asked tentatively. "How come you're not...worried about it? I'm freaking out about the whole thing but you just seem...cool about it."

Johnny gave a small shrug, putting a hand on her swollen abdomen. "I am kinda freaking out," He admitted sheepishly. "Well...I'm actually totally freaking out. I just don't do it around you since it would stress you out or something...plus, I just figured that we could learn it all along the way, right?"

"Hmm...I guess so," She agreed. "It's just that...I know this'll sound stupid and weird...but I really just want to be a good Mom, you know?" She didn't say it aloud, but it was implied just a touch: since she hadn't been too enthusiastic at first, she felt it was only right for her to be the greatest parent she could be to make up for it.

"It's not stupid," The red-head disagreed, frowning to himself slightly. "I totally get that. It's gonna be scary, having to look after this kid all of the time; everything we do will, like, have an effect on them..." He gave a small sigh, resting his head near the baby bump. "You know my big brother, Matt? You know he has a kid, right? Well...I've seen him and Josh together and...and he's just so _good_ at it. Like, he gives him rides on his back and tucks him in all the time, a-a-and...God, Josh looks at him like he's the most important person in the world, you know?" He bit his lip softly. "Mavy, what if I'm not like that?"

Mavis sent him a slightly puzzled look. "Johnny, I'm sure that you will be."

He shook his head, suddenly looking rather worried. "Mavy, what if our kid doesn't like me? And I don't mean that they like you more than me, I mean that they'll just...hate me completely."

"How could they hate you?" She asked, eyes wide at such a thought; it alarmed her, to say the least. "Johnny, they're gonna love you! I mean...look at _Josh_ for rabies sake! He's only your nephew and he just...lights up whenever you play with him; it's 'cause you're fun and...and of course our kid will _love_ you!"

"You think?" Johnny asked, slightly hesitant. When she nodded, he let out a breath he'd been holding. "Okay."

The two sat in silence for a moment, simply enjoying the summer night's air as the evening began to draw to a close. It wasn't too humid or hot, luckily, and so the two were quite content to just sit close together, admiring the bump that would soon be the third member of their family and enjoying each other's company.

After a few minutes, Johnny cleared his throat again. "Mavy? I know you said you don't care, but...do you think it'll be a boy or a girl?"

"I'm not sure," She admitted quietly. "I think that as long as they're healthy then I'll be happy either way."

Johnny traced the curve of her stomach with his index finger, all of his concentration fixed onto it. "Mmm-hmm. Maybe...maybe one day I'd like to have a boy _and_ a girl," He told her quietly before giving her a small and sly grin. "If you're up to that."

Mavis gave a small laugh. "We'll see. Let's just focus on popping this one out first before we try for another one."

Johnny, pleased with this, chuckled and pressed the palm of his hand against his wife's stomach. "You hear that, kiddo? Your Mommy and Daddy are so prepared that they're already talking about getting you a brother or sister!...Not immediately though," He added at Mavis' slightly narrowed eyes.

And then it happened - it was almost as if there were butterflies fluttering against the palms of their hands, pressing up against the inside of Mavis' stomach.

"Woah" Johnny exclaimed, jolting up but still keeping his hand in place. He looked at Mavis eagerly before lowering his head once again. "Was that a kick?"

Mavis nodded, resting her hand next to her husband's head and smiling widely. "Yep. They've got a really strong kick - Auntie Wanda says that's a good sign, since it means they're healthy."

Johnny pursed his lips in awe, tongue sticking out slightly as he concentrated. "This is so weird...Oh! Wait! There's another one!" He grinned, mouth hanging slightly open.

"I think they like the sound of your voice," Mavis mused, remembering this fact from a library book she'd looked at recently. "They like mine too...watch...Hey there, little vampire bat!" She directed her words at her stomach, smiling even more. "You comfortable in there?"

A couple of strong kicks against the palms of their hands confirmed this theory.

Johnny seemed amazed by this. "Cool!...Here, let me try..." He cleared his throat and moved his mouth closer to his wife's belly. "Hi, child of mine! You feel like traveling with us anytime soon? Maybe to see your Grandpa and Grandma?"

More kicks could be felt, and Mavis let out a small 'oh' when she felt the baby shift it's position. "I think they like that idea," She giggled, rubbing her stomach with her hands affectionately.

"This is so cool," Johnny repeated, looking quite dazed by the experience. "It's like...they know who we are or something...the kicks feel stronger than my brothers' when they did it...maybe because they're a vampire baby?"

Mavis shrugged - she'd never felt a human baby kick in the womb, so of course she didn't know. "Maybe," She sighed contently.

Okay, so _maybe_ this whole pregnancy thing wasn't as bad as she had thought it had been - especially not when it led to long-lasting memories like this.

* * *

Mavis was going to kill him.

It wasn't his fault, Johnny would argue, not really: how was he supposed to know that their daughter would find a way to crawl out of her bedroom and go somewhere (he had no idea where) that he couldn't find?

Oh, God, Mavis was going to skin him alive.

"Lucy!" He called softly, putting on a baby voice in hopes it would elicit some kind of response from her. "Come on, Lucy, I've got a special treat for you!"

It appeared that she was not as stupid as he hoped - if he didn't know any better, than he would have thought that she was an evil mastermind and that she _wanted_ to see her father skinned alive.

"C'mon, Lu!" He tried, almost begging now. "If you don't then Mommy will hurt Daddy, and we don't want that!" _Crap, what if she's not even in the house?!_ Johnny grimaced at that prospect and shook his head: no, that couldn't be true.

_Right, so...she's not in her room, she's not in our room, she's not watching TV... Oh no._

_The kitchen!_

Worried that their infant daughter was in there right now and drinking something poisonous - or worse - he stumbled up the hallway and shoved the door open...and there she was.

To his relief, she was remarkably unharmed and happy; instead of the poison he'd imagined her to be drinking she was sitting on the floor and munching on a piece of candy - the cupboard where it was kept was open, and she appeared to have just reached in and grabbed it. There were no bruises, no cuts, no blood - just sticky fingers and caramel around her mouth.

"I've been looking for you all over!" He breathed, bending to pick her up. "God, Lu, you...you almost gave me a heart attack." She giggled and reached up a hand to tug at his hair - something he was used to by now - so he chuckled in response and carried her into the front room. "You know, you're more trouble than you're worth sometimes."

At six years old, Lucy looked no older than a human aged around a year or so old - and, God, she was the prettiest baby he'd ever seen: and he'd seen a _lot_ of babies during his time. Maybe he was biased, being her father, or maybe she really just was the most beautiful baby ever - he was still in awe of her, even five years after her birth.

Humming to himself, Johnny placed Lucy down on the carpet gently before lowering himself down next to her. "Alright, Lu, how about we play a game? You want the doggy?" He picked up a stuffed dog that had been lying on the floor nearby (as most of his daughter's toys were) and shook it in front of her; Lucy let out a delighted giggle and reached out her arms for it eagerly. "Alright, alright. But first of all, let's see if you can do something for 'Daddy', okay?" She blinked, still waiting for the stuffed animal. "Can you say Daddy's name, Lu? You know; 'Da-ddy'?"

Lucy looked up at him innocently before opening her mouth and gurgling nonsense.

"Well...we're getting there," Johnny decided, passing the toy to her with a grin; she beamed and began laughing loudly to herself. "Alright, let's have a story time then - your Mommy wants you in bed before she gets home from her hunt, and Daddy really needs some sleep too."

The toy seemed to have appeased her to the point of cooperating with him, thankfully, and so the red-head had no trouble in picking her up again and rocking her on the spot in his arms. After a moment, however, she gave a small whine and began wriggling against him.

"Huh? You okay there, kiddo?" Johnny asked lightly - and then it occurred to him. "Oh yeah! You like to have a pacifier when you sleep! Duh!" She simply rested her head on his shoulder, hands curling into fists as her father begun to search the room for one. "Aha! Here we go!" Grinning, he eased a small black pacifier into her mouth, careful not to force it too much and upset her, before rubbing her back gently.

And now all that was left was story time - and then he could get some well-deserved sleep of his own.

"Okay," He muttered to himself as he carried her down the hall to her room. "So, we've already talked about Mommy and Daddy's adventures in Mexico and Hawaii...what else can we do...? Oh, I got it!" He grinned to himself and held his daughter closer to him. "Once, before I met your Mommy, I was on a hike with my little brother Jake. You know, your Uncle Jake? He sends you little dolls every Christmas?"

Lucy just blinked, sucking quietly on the pacifier in her mouth.

"Anyway, we got pretty lost in this forest and...well...we ended up in this weird little European town - at least, I think it was... We ended up staying for a little while, and when it was dinner that first night, they gave us potatoes...and, God, they were the most bland stuff ever! Like, no gravy, no sauce, nothing! Anyway, I spotted a bottle of molasses down the table...er... Molasses? They're like...this sugary sweet thing like treacle or something, you know?"

The baby red-head just regarded him with wide eyes, clearly not too bothered.

Johnny gave a small shrug. "Okay. Anyway, I grabbed it and poured it all over the potatoes; let me tell you something, Lu, it wasn't at all delicious but it was still way better than those weird bland potatoes." Come to think of it, he hadn't had human food for quite a number of years now, and remembering it made him feel rather nostalgic. "Oh man, let me tell you, Lucy: human food is either really good or really gross. Like, chocolate and stuff, they taste awesome; but other stuff like...I dunno...brussel sprouts is just...blegh!"

His daughter gave a tiny sleepy giggle, eyes fluttering as she started to fall asleep.

"Anyway, your Uncle Jake actually liked it and, to this day, he still likes molasses on his potatoes. Now, we gotta get you some sleep," He decided, shifting her in his arms so that he could lower her into her cot. Johnny tucked her under the covers, careful not to jostle her too much, and arranged her soft toys around his daughter neatly.

For a moment, Johnny just stood there, leaning on the crib, and watched his baby stir sleepily in slight awe. _God, I am the luckiest idiot in the world_. He gave a small smile to himself and lowered his head to kiss her forehead affectionately. "G'night, Lucy. Love you."

"Mm...Dad-da."

Johnny froze, watching as she opened her eyes and gave a bright smile at him; in that moment, there seemed to be a connection between the two where they understood each other perfectly - or, at least, Johnny understood his daughter perfectly.

"Yeah," He agreed quietly, giving a small nod. "I'm your Dada."

That was her first word - and, God, it was _him_. He hadn't known what it was going to be, but had assumed that it would be 'Mama' for Mavis or something similar...but the possibility of her first word being a word for him had never crossed his mind.

"Dad-da," She repeated, reaching a hand out and touching his cheek with a happy smile. The amount of love and trust in her eyes - even in someone so _young_ \- was overwhelming. "Dad-da!"

"That's right," Johnny said, giving her a loving grin. "Your Daddy's here."

_Wait 'til Mavis hears about this._


	10. Life Progresses

It was strange the pace that life as a vampire continued at; while it was known to span far longer than a human's life would be, the years seemed to go by just as quickly - if not quicker.

Watching your family grow was something that was both time-consuming and, yet, went too fast for your liking; it didn't matter if you were an average human or a long-living monster, you still experienced the same mixed sense of pride, sadness and nostalgia as the years went by.

First of all, Lily had aged in what seemed to be virtually nothing to a monster - her own older sister, Mina, who was thirty one years older, wasn't even of age when she passed away - and it was obviously always going to be far too soon that she was gone for all of the family members who had grown to love her. There wasn't much more that could be said about Lily; for hundreds of years, it would be a very sore topic for everyone involved, and they all found that it was better if they simply grieved in their own ways, talking about it whenever they each felt ready.

And then there was the other three; Lucy, who had wanted to be a grown-up since the moment she turned from 'their child' to 'their eldest', was also incredibly painful to see grown up - albeit for different reasons. Perhaps it was the fact that she was living as a teenager before her other siblings for quite a while (even with Lily's accelerated aging) and so the whole "raising a teenager" thing was new to Johnny and Mavis, or maybe the fact that she seemed to have grown beyond her years - whatever it was, it set the tone of joy and trepidation for the years to come.

She was almost like a trial run for what her younger siblings would be like, one supposed; teenage hormones, dressing more like an adult as she got older - and then there was the boyfriend. By the age of 106, she had passed all of these milestones - with twelve years left until she came of age - and it was _so_ not easy. To be fair, Mavis hadn't been ** _too_ ** bothered by much of it - slightly emotional, yes, but _nothing_ like Johnny's overprotectiveness. Never in their relationship had she known him to be so protective or possessive, and so she could only deduce that it was possibly an innate and natural biological action that occurred in parents - fathers in particular - when it came to their children...well, it was rather to do with fathers and _daughters_ , it soon transpired.

Nothing seemed to be weirder or harder than seeing her have a baby of her own; when it feels like only yesterday that a child was a toddler who needed their parents' help with everything, seeing that same child - grown and really not a child any longer - helping their own toddlers out was just plain weird. As well as making you feel rather old, it was also rather sad in the sense that you could remember being in _their_ place and helping _them_ to become the people they were in front of you today.

Jack...boy, that had been a whole story in itself; being the only boy couldn't have been easy - let alone with all of the other drama the poor kid had to put up with - and it didn't help one bit that he was socially awkward around those his own age (something that both parents - and Dracula, for that matter - suspected had come from Johnny). Being the only boy meant that while he was just as loved, he wasn't paid attention to as much; his sisters simply took it all up with their drama and such.

For years to come, several members of the family would blame themselves for what happened to Jack; Johnny and Mavis were firm that they should have been paying more attention, Lucy was adamant that if she had only looked out for him and given him advice...heck, even Mina had thought to herself that she could have helped by just sticking around him more to make sure he was never alone. Dracula, however, seemed to feel more guilty than any of them; though he wasn't directly involved, it was _his_ hotel's bar that the young vampire spent several years - decades - at trying to drown his sorrows.

There really was nothing more painful than seeing your child - your child that you had made, raised and loved for all of their life - turning into a depressed alcoholic. Finding Jack passed out in a bar (whether it was the hotel's or simply a random one nearby) was probably the worst thing about it at first; sweet and intelligent Jack simply didn't _deserve_ to be found in such a terrible way, hung over and a tad weepy due to the drink. As the years turned into decades, it wasn't just the bars that Jack found himself turning to either.

"You should talk to him," Mavis told Johnny desperately one night.

Johnny simply looked at a loss for words. "Well...I...I want to, but what am I meant to say? The kid's of age now-"

"But look at him!" Mavis stressed, looking quite on the verge of tears by this point. "He's passed out drunk every single morning, and if he's not, then he's in a bed with some random girl he barely knows!"

The red-head frowned to himself. "Well...look, I don't like it either," He admitted. "I'm not gonna lie, Mavy, I _really_ don't like it; but most guys...they _do_ sleep with loads of girls. I dunno, it's something that guys do, hooking up with random chicks... Besides, what would I even say, Mavis? I never did anything like that, and he won't listen to _me_."

"You're his father," She pointed out softly. "Of course he'll listen. Maybe all he needs is for you to talk him through it...who knows?"

As it turned out, that 'talk' between father and son had turned into a rather one-sidedly heated argument on Jack's part as he vehemently denied that anything was wrong with him, which then boiled down again to tearful confessions and reassurances.

While Mavis never knew the exact details of the conversation - that was really confidential information for Johnny and Jack to know only at first - she did understand that, whatever their son had told his father, it had deeply affected him.

And then there was Mina; little brown-eyed, mischievous and happily gloomy Mina. Mina, who had homed a bat named Edgar and then gone on to home Edgar's children too after realizing the slight misjudgement of gender. Mina who slept with a brown bat plush toy called Martha-bat.

Mina, who had gone away and come back with an older moustachioed man called Gomez.

To put it lightly, Johnny was _not_ fond of his daughter's new boyfriend; for starters, Gomez was _older;_ no father _wanted_ their daughter dating an older guy, not matter how sweet or suave they seemed. Secondly, he got a bad vibe from the dark-haired man that he couldn't put his finger on; perhaps it was that Gomez seemed like the kind of guy who would be a womaniser, a smooth-talker - no one would be _that_ alluring if they weren't flirtatious or trying to hook up with girl after girl.

Okay, so Johnny was a tiny bit biased and perhaps overthinking it - so sue him! Mina was his daughter - the baby of the family - and he was damned if he was going to let some ass use her for a quick ego boost.

"He's charming and sweet," Mavis would tell him whenever he voiced his concerns to her. "And Mina likes him, so the best thing we can do as her parents is to support her decisions and who she loves."

The thing was, the thought of Mina being _in love_ was ridiculous; Mina was never the romantic sister or the one who had wanted to settle down - she had always wanted excitement and adventure, not men and babies to look after. Sure, she may have pointed out an actor on the TV that she found attractive, but that was it; she wasn't into love or any of that stuff since it was too sappy for her.

Perhaps it wasn't _love_ , Johnny thought one evening; perhaps it was simply an infatuation or - dare he think it - a fling that _she_ was initiating, a one time thing _she_ was instigating.

For a while, it did certainly seem to be that kind of relationship; whenever he and Mavis saw the two together within that first year, the most contact that they ever made was Gomez putting his arm around her waist, or Mina fondly kissing his cheek before one of them left to go on a hunt. Really, there was hardly much to go on - though Johnny could only assume that anything far _worse_ was going on behind closed doors (which he desperately tried not to think about).

It was only a year and a half after Gomez had been first introduced, during Mina's birthday party, that Johnny realized his hopeful assumption about the length of their relationship being short-term was wrong; very, _very_ wrong.

As it turned out, seeing his youngest remaining daughter being hastily kissed and groped at by an older dude was all it took for him to lose his cool - and it also turned out that Mavis wasn't too impressed either...though this was mainly down to _his_ actions.

"Johnny, you cannot keep doing this!" Mavis hissed at him, pulling him out from the party hall through a door into an empty corridor with surprising strength.

Johnny spluttered, looking scandalized. "OUR DAUGHTER is being...being...you know!"

She grimaced slightly. "Yes, I know," She agreed uncomfortably, shaking her head. "It's not a sight a Mom really wants or needs to see. But it's really none of our business what she does with boys now - she's of age and perfectly capable of making her own decisions."

"He's totally using her!" He argued. "I know he is! If this was, like, a zing relationship or even a...a real one, he wouldn't be forcing himself on her!"

Mavis raised an eyebrow. "Forcing himself? Johnny, it's her birthday, she has a boyfriend, and they've both drunk tonight," She pointed out obviously. "I think it's obvious why that combination lead to what we just saw."

 _Hmm. She does have a point there_.

"Could you please just calm down?" She continued, almost pleadingly. "It's been such a great party, and a nice night too - we shouldn't spoil her birthday by arguing about _this_ of all things."

Maybe it was the alcohol he himself had consumed, maybe it was the defeat taking over him once again - whatever it was, Johnny decided to just try to forget about everything that had happened that night and returned to the party, having more than a few drinks to help.

He didn't want to remember any of this in the morning.

* * *

Johnny had been attempting to cook spleens in blankets (among other monster delicacies) when a particular moustachioed man awkwardly came to stand in the doorway; Gomez and Mina had been invited to spend the Christmas holiday with the family, and at that moment Mina and Mavis had gone out hunting, leaving the two men alone. Johnny hadn't complained because he knew he'd be busy in the kitchen, which hopefully meant he wouldn't have to look his daughter's boyfriend in the eye.

As it turned out, he continued to be wrong.

"Uhh...can I...help?" The red-head asked slowly, avoiding eye-contact; thinking on it, this was the first time the two had been in the room together without Mavis or Mina present.

Gomez shifted on the spot, looking rather nervous. "Yes...well...I mean you don't have to, but...I'd like you to."

Johnny gave a small nod. "Cool, okay...sit down or whatever, I'm listening."

The dark-haired man didn't sit at the kitchen table, but he did move closer to stand in the light. "Well, sir, I've been thinking about a lot lately - about Mina a lot." Johnny perked up suddenly at this, raising his eyes to give Gomez his full attention. "Sir, I've never met anyone like her; your daughter is...God, where do I start? She's intelligent, stubborn but kind, and she's honestly the most stunning creature I've ever laid my eyes on."

_Okay...not sure how I should feel about the word 'creature' being used, but I get his point._

Gomez put his hands into the pockets of his dress trousers and gave Johnny a sincere look. "I love Mina - more than I've ever loved anyone. I know that you aren't particularly fond of me, sir, but I can assure you that I'd do anything for her - you name it, and I'll do it." He gave a small sigh. "I can tell what you're thinking; that I'm a little rich boy who is always getting what he wants - rightly so - and I know that you don't think I'm good enough for Mina. To be honest, you may be completely right about that, but I do know one thing - that I love your daughter so much that I will do whatever it takes to make her happy."

 _Oh no,_ Johnny thought in slight horror. _Please do not let this be what I think it is._

"Alright," The red-head interrupted, not wanting to hear anymore if this was going the way he thought it was. "I get what you're trying to say, but why are you telling me?"

"Well, I was hoping to maybe...ask her to marry me."

"And you came to ask my permission?" Johnny couldn't help but feel surprised as well as slightly thrown off; neither of his sons-in-law had bothered to ask for permission - not that he was offended by this, since he and Mavis had agreed long ago that their daughters were independent people who could make their own decisions (even if Johnny _did_ find it a tad uncomfortable).

Gomez gave a small shrug. "I felt it was only right; in my family, it's either pre-arranged or you have to ask the girl's parents. It's all rather proper and old-fashioned." He sent the other man a slightly nervous look. "I'm asking, really, not for permission but for acceptance; either way I want to marry her, but I feel that my conscious would be a lot clearer if I knew her father approved."

Such a strange thing to do, Johnny mused to himself; sure, he had asked Dracula about asking Mavis but that was different circumstances - Count Dracula was a very well-respected (and scary) monster, so he kinda had to ask beforehand.

"I see," Johnny said quietly, looking down at the food he had abandoned.

"Can I be honest with you, sir?" Gomez asked, eyes trained on Johnny. "I know that you dislike me, and I'm not going to pretend that I know why...but I'd like you to tell me."

To be honest, Johnny didn't know what to say to that; it wasn't like he could just tell him, 'I get a bad vibe' or 'I think you're bad news'. So, instead, he merely said, "I guess...I guess it's just that you're rich."

The other man looked puzzled by this. "Rich?"

"Yeah," The red-haired man agreed, giving a small nod. "I dunno, I guess...you've probably had all that you wanted, right? Like all the stuff that you wanted - and from what I know, most rich people come across as...as...you know."

Gomez gave a sad smile. "Snobs? Don't worry, I'm not offended; I've seen rich up-close, first-hand, and some are snobs...my family included." Johnny tried not to do a double-take at this, instead listening as the dark-haired man continued. "All my life I've had fancy this and expensive that - don't get me wrong, I appreciated everything they gave me since I was so lucky, but as I've grown I've realized that material objects and money are not what life should be about."

"And your parents?"

He gave a small half-hearted smile. "My parents try to understand, but it's the way they've been raised - the difference in generations and all that. They want me to settle down with a rich girl - hence the prearranged marriage to the nymph girl in America - to keep the family rich and upper-class... But I don't want that," He said softly, suddenly looking rather hesitant as he spoke. "The truth is, I want to marry because I love someone - and I love Mina."

For some reason, Johnny was seeing a whole new light to this Gomez guy; gone was the previous image he had held of a confident older guy only interested in using Mina, and instead there was a honest young man pouring his heart out to him.

Dare he say it, he'd actually been completely wrong about this guy.

"So?" Gomez asked anxiously, snapping Johnny out of his thoughts to look at him. "What do you say, sir?"

Johnny gave a small and warm smile. "First of all, stop calling me, 'sir'; I'm not that old!" Both of them gave a small laugh. "Seriously, just 'Johnny' will do. Second...well, I guess you better get a ring - make sure it's a good one too, 'cause Mina deserves that kind of thing."

After all, the guy was loaded: the _least_ he could do was buy an expensive and frankly _amazing_ engagement ring.


	11. Family Ties

It was safe to say that Freddie didn't know a lot about parents or parenting, although this wasn't exactly his fault; he couldn't be blamed for his mother and father being murdered when he was ten - a mere toddler in the monster world - or for the fact that the only other figure he had to look up to was his Uncle Al.

And Freddie _did_ appreciate all the efforts his uncle had put in just to make sure he grew up in a loving environment, away from the tough adoption and fostering processes...but all the same, he wished he could have known his parents.

Even with Al's efforts, though, his childhood had been far from easy or peaceful: by the time Freddie was sixty he was already helping his uncle out by doing small jobs for whichever employer hired them at the time. It wasn't tough work, admittedly, nothing more than helping to serve beverages and food, but it was still work. Besides that, they found themselves on the run more often than not: sometimes it was because of rather unaccepting humans becoming a sudden threat, and other times because they needed to move to a different area for a job.

One particular memory stayed in Freddie's mind as he grew up, more so than others: shortly after his fiftieth birthday, when Al had been working nights in a local bar. Being young, he had refused to leave his nephew alone for the whole night and so had no choice but to take Freddie with him to work; he was unaware of the things that he might have seen.

Freddie had been left to sit at a chair near the bar so that Al could keep a close eye on him and given a book to entertain himself with; at a young age, he loved learning and hoped that maybe he'd be able to do something with the knowledge he gained so that he and his uncle could have a better life than they did presently. Freddie would always remember random details about that night, such as the subject of the book; it had been an Italian book of short stories - his parents had been of Italian origin, and so while English was his first language Al had insisted that he learn Italian too.

"...I can't, Joe. Look, I've got the boy over there - he's hardly in the way."

His ears pricked up at that: 'the boy over there' was a phrase commonly used to describe him.

"Do you not know how bad it is for business to have a kid sitting here?!" A harsh voice snarled. "Our customers are _not_ going to want to see some snotty-nosed nit cluttering up the bar with his crap!"

That had been a Mister Joe Boyle, Freddie remembered: a tall and scary man who looked like death personified. God knows what species or type of monster he was, but there was no way that a vampire could look that terrible or terrifying - perhaps he was some kind of monster found in comic books.

"Get rid of him," Mister Boyle continued, voice dropping to a low threatening tone. "Or I'll do it - one way or another."

And suddenly there was a loud slap that sounded around the bar: Al had grabbed Boyle, enraged, and struck him straight across the face. Judging by his face afterwards, Freddie could only guess that he'd done it on impulse since he immediately looked guilty and begun to apologize.

"I'm sorry," Al seethed, obviously using all of his effort to sound polite. "It won't happen again...But I don't want you threatening the boy."

Suddenly, Al was being dragged out by his shirt, over the bar and to the floor, and Boyle was above him with his fist raised. "You think I'm letting you get away with this?! Stupid little fucking grease ball!"

It was a word that Freddie didn't understand at the time, but would later come to know as being a racist slur because he was Italian; still, at the time he had watched horrified as the scene in front of him unfolded.

" _You_ work for _me_ , you got that?!" He continued to yell, aiming another punch for Al's nose. " _You_ should be on your knees _begging_ me to accept your appreciation for the job; you won't find another bar owner around these parts so willing to hire an uneducated little dago!" After a few more hits he pushed himself up, looking down at Al with disgust on his face. "You will do whatever I say, you understand?!"

By this point Al was bleeding heavily and curled up on the floor - unable to do much else, he gave a simple nod as he gasped out in pain.

"Damn fucking right!" Boyle spat at him before turning to look at Freddie. "That goes for you too, you little Guinea; I don't care how white you are, you're still a greaser, just like the rest of them!" His eyes flickered to the book that the boy was reading and his mouth curled up in a cruel smirk. "No amount of reading will make you different: within the next hundred years, you'll be working a low-paying job just like your pathetic uncle!"

Those words stayed with Freddie for years and years after that; growing up, he wanted to help his uncle - to make sure that their lives were better one day, that they never had to worry about having too little for themselves. But no matter what he did, it always went wrong; unlike his uncle, he couldn't cook and therefore couldn't help out with the chef jobs that Al got. He had just about enough co-ordination to wait tables, luckily, but even then there were still accidents if he got too distracted or nervous.

Thankfully, life wasn't quite as bad as it had been during that time working at Boyle's bar - they weren't called racist slurs or fearful of physical violence - but it was still pretty bad for decades.

They had been living and working in Bulgaria when they heard about the announcement in the paper, the one that changed everything; in fact, they'd just lost their jobs as a chef and a waiter at a restaurant the night before when Freddie, flicking through the local monster news uselessly.

"Hey!" He cried out, alert and bright immediately. When his uncle looked up, he gestured for him to come over. "I think I found the answer, Uncle Al!"

Al gave a small sigh. "This better be good..."

"It is, it is," Freddie insisted excitedly, pointing to the ad in the paper. "Listen: _Head Chef needed for hotel restaurant in Transylvania, Romania. Send reference of previous work._ Uncle Al, it's perfect!"

His uncle gave his nephew a small pitying look. "Fred, we don't know how old this ad is...they've probably filled the position by now-"

"No, it's new!" The red-head exclaimed desperately. "If you look at the ad, it says that their chef retired this morning - it's midday now, and this paper only came out just before dusk, that's what the guy who gave it to me said! If we sent off our information now, they might consider us!"

Al, knowing he wouldn't give in, took the paper into his hands and studied it closer. "Christ, Freddie...I can't apply for this! Do you know which hotel it is?!" When his nephew just blinked, he shook his head. "Hotel Transylvania - one of the most prestigious in the _world_ and run by _the_ Count Dracula; our chances of working there are about as high as the chances of us being able to settle down."

"But if we got it then we'd be able to settle!" Freddie stated, looking up at the older vampire pleadingly. "Look, I know it's stupid - that I'm stupid for thinking we could get it - but we need to take the chance!"

Not expecting much, Al had agreed and allowed Freddie to mail the application out as soon as the night fell - and they'd be forever grateful that they did.

* * *

"Daddy?"

"Yeah, Mina?"

She tapped her foot impatiently. "Freddie just turned up at the door. He said he wanted to talk to _you,_ " Mina told him, looking rather put out over the fact that her friend wasn't looking for her at that moment. "I told him that you were busy sorting out plans for our summer trip to Hawaii but he insisted."

Johnny gave a shrug. "Alright, cool. He can come and talk if he wants."

So far, the planning of the trip to Hawaii wasn't going too badly: sure, it required a _lot_ of precaution on his and Mavis' part to make sure that they weren't going to be travelling in daylight at any point that they weren't going to be on the plane (the shades on the windows took care of that problem), but so far they were all pretty excited to be going.

"Err...hi."

Johnny sent his son-in-law a small wave as he entered, looking away from his computer research. "Hey, dude! What's up?"

Freddie was fidgeting and more anxious than usual, he noticed, especially as he took a seat rather carefully across from Johnny and bit his lip. "I...well...I didn't want to...er...bother you or anything...but I dunno who else to ask really..."

No one ever asked his advice on anything, not even the kids, so Johnny was rather intrigued by this. "Oh yeah? What do you wanna talk about?"

"Well...me and Lucy, we're...you know..."

Ah. Johnny couldn't help the large grin that spread across his face. " _Oh_ , I see: pregnant wife pains? Don't worry, man, been there and done that. It won't last forever, trust me, and it doesn't mean you're stupid: it's just the weird hormones, you know?"

"No, that's not what I mean," Freddie said quietly. "I'm just...worried about it. About being a...a father..."

Oh. The older red-head suddenly understood completely. "Oh, right! I know what you're talking about now!" He paused to close the lid on his laptop and straightened up in his seat. "Don't worry, every guy gets that; at one point or another, you sit there thinking if you're gonna suck real bad or if you're gonna screw this kid up. To be honest, I'm pretty sure that one of mine is gonna be screwed up one way or another since I spent most of the time goofing around..."

Freddie blinked, not quite sure what to make of this. "O-Okay. Right. Thanks, I guess?"

"You want advice?" Johnny checked, and his son-in-law gave a nod. "I'm not sure I'm the right guy to ask, you know; besides, shouldn't you be asking your..." He trailed off as he remembered that Freddie didn't have a father or mother - only an uncle, who had raised someone else's kid...though was that too different from raising your own? Johnny didn't know, so he said, "Never mind. Sure then, you can ask me anything, dude."

Freddie looked rather hesitant for a moment before he jumped right into it, clearly anxious and awkward about having this whole discussion. "Well, it's just that I'm scared that I won't do a good job, you know? I mean, I know you said that all dads feel that way but they know what to do 'cause the look at what their own dads are like...I can't do that."

"Well...what about your Uncle Al?" The older vampire asked. "I know it's not the same thing as a dad but couldn't you just use him as an example?"

"He worked most of the time," Freddie said quietly. "He looked after me and taught me how to read and write and stuff, and I love him. But he's always said that he's never acted like a dad to me - he just did what he could to help me survive."

Johnny, having grown up in a relatively large but loving family and then raising his own kids that same way, couldn't quite imagine that; he sometimes forgot that some people's main priority was to survive instead of being happy. "Man, that's rough...Okay, well...if you want me to give you a few tips then I will - but it probably won't be very good." And then it came to him, bright as day - corny, but still useful. "So, you wanna know something to make you a good dad, right?" His son-in-law gave an eager nod. "It's so simple, dude, that it's nearly stupid: if you love the kid then you can't go wrong."

Freddie gave a small frown of confusion. "I don't..."

"Every decision a guy makes as a dad is made 'cause they love their kid and choose what they think will be the best possible option for them in the long term," Johnny explained surely. "Like, if a kid acts badly then you send them to their room to teach them a lesson - in the long term it'll make them a better person. Okay, so sure they'll get pretty mad at you at first but that'll go away after a day."

Who knew he was so good at this kind of thing? Really, Johnny thought to himself, he could give Count Dracula a run for his money at the rate he was dishing advice out.


	12. Jack and Allie

For a while, fear put him off of calling the number that she had given him; what if it was a fake number? What if she forgot about him shortly afterwards or something? After all, it wouldn't have been the first time that it happened. The last thing that Jack wanted was to become heartbroken again and to turn back to drinking himself stupid to numb the pain - he knew it hurt his relatives, and it wasn't fair to put that pain onto them. No, he thought to himself, perhaps it would be best to wait it out a little.

Sam, of course, foiled this plan completely.

"So have you called that girl from the doctor's office yet?" She questioned loudly when everyone in the family had gone to the hotel for dinner one night; this immediately ceased all conversation and had everyone staring at Jack in confusion.

Jack ducked his head. "What girl? I have no idea what you're talking about-"

"The one at the office," Sam interrupted innocently, although the mischievous grin on her face gave her away completely. "The one who wrote her phone number on your arm before we left, duh! She looked totally into you!"

"A girl gave you her number?" Lucy asked, raising an eyebrow. "How much did you have to pay her?"

Jack scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "It's nothing, alright? And I didn't pay her anything, Lucy," He added harshly. "She just gave me her number - it's not like we're getting married or anything."

"Dude, if she gave you her number call her," Johnny advised, clapping his son on the shoulder with a wide grin. "She must really be into you if she gave you a phone number...heh, I remember the days when I used to get girls' phone numbers; man, those were good days! In fact, I...uhh..." He trailed off at the harsh look Mavis sent him and decided to backtrack. "Of course, I never called them or anything; nah, I...I just liked talking to them about stuff...yeah."

Mina sent her older brother a smirk that clearly said, _he is so whipped_. Jack coughed to hide his laughter in response.

"What's her name, Jack?" Mavis prompted, decided to move on from _that_ topic of conversation.

"Oh...erhm...Allie," He answered, suddenly nervous again. "I kinda fell asleep in that waiting room waiting for Sam," He admitted sheepishly. "And when I woke up she was sitting next to me so we kinda started a conversation. That's it, really."

_Please, do not ask the question...please don't ask it..._

"Hold on," Lucy started, giving her brother a curious look. "Why was she in the waiting room at a psychiatry office?"

 _Damn it_.

Before Jack could answer, Mina slapped her sister on the arm. "Don't be rude!" She scolded, and in that moment it looked hilarious that such a tiny vampire such as herself was _telling off_ her _older_ lanky sister. "It's no one's business but hers!"

"Geesh, sorry!" Lucy muttered, shooting the dark-haired girl a small glare. "I was just wondering, that's all!"

"Well, whatever," Mina muttered, rolling her eyes before turning to their brother. "Jack, you should totally call her up! Even if nothing comes out of it, at least you'll have a friend or something-"

Lucy gave a small smirk. "God knows you need one."

Jack rubbed a hand over his face. "Fine, I'll give her a call or something later; to be honest, she probably barely remembers me."

* * *

As it turned out, Jack was actually wrong about something for once. When he rung her up, she not only recognized his voice but recalled his name and what he had been doing there when they met - much to his amazement. Since it had been rather close to morning when he called Allie up, they agreed that they'd meet up the following month at Hotel Transylvania so that they could talk more appropriately - some things were better done in person than on the phone.

"So, how's your niece?" Allie asked when they sat down at a table together in the dining hall.

Jack, who was becoming more and more nervous since the setting was nearly _identical_ to an actual date, gave a small shrug of the shoulders. "She's fine.. I don't really think she needs all of that counselling crap, but, hey, what do I know? How about you?"

Allie gave a derisive laugh. "Fine, I suppose, apart from the doctors trying to give me more and more medicine to try; I can't even feel sad anymore without them thinking I might snap."

"I know the feeling," Jack mumbled, thinking back to when he'd briefly been re-living with his parents after his alcohol problem; Johnny and Mavis had been extremely worried that the smallest thing might set him off into a drink-binge again, and so they'd been somewhat over-protective (Mavis especially, he noted).

"You know," Allie said, her smile fading slightly. "For a while I thought you weren't going to call; it wouldn't have surprised me much, to be honest - not the first time either. I'm glad that you did though," She admitted, suddenly becoming more shy again. "You seemed like a nice guy when we met before."

"Oh...really?"

She gave a nod. "Yes; nice, if a little shy. It's actually kinda great to see a guy who isn't all cocky and full himself - I've been around enough of them to know just what they're like."

"Oh man, that sucks," Jack agreed. "You know, when I used to come here as a kid there were a few guys who were older that used to pick on me; I don't get how people can be like that at all."

It soon became apparent that Jack and Allie had the same interests in common; Jack was rather excited when he learnt that she was a keen reader like himself and always had been, and it was rather endearing when she ducked her head out of embarrassment as she admitted that she still read quite a lot of 'fantasy' and stories set in other worlds.

"It's stupid, I know," She continued, giving a small good-natured laugh to herself. "But I like the idea of being able to escape into another world - where things are kind of simpler."

"No, I totally get it," Jack agreed eagerly. "What kind of books are your favourite ones?"

Allie grinned, rather pleased by the interest he was showing. "I've always loved _Alice in Wonderland_ ; ever since I was little, I thought it was so wonderful and different from all of the other books out there. It's definitely my favourite."

Somewhere in Jack's brain, a memory triggered from years ago.

_Jack was sat at the kitchen table with Lily: he held up a card with a word written on it and studied his little sister's face._

_Lily beamed, gaps showing in her teeth. "That's 'rabbit'... Like in Wonderland!"_

No, he did not need this now...he did not need to be reminded of his baby sister in this moment, not when it was all going so well...

_Lily smiled mischievously. "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"_

_"Lils, that's a riddle from a fantasy book," He informed her. "It's not got an answer: even the Hatter himself didn't know. How the heck am I meant to know?"_

_"'Cause you said that you're the smartest," Lily stated, looking pleased to have asked a question her brother didn't know the answer to. "And...well, it was kinda bugging me. I mean, what does it mean?!"_

_"I don't know," Jack admitted honestly, patting her hand with his. "But here's a tip: don't ask me anymore questions related to 'Alice in Wonderland' because I won't know the answer at all."_

He knew the answer now, of course, but he himself had never told her...did she ever get an answer to that question?

"Are you okay?" Allie asked, interrupting him from his thoughts and looking concerned. "You look as if you've seen a ghost."

"I'm fine, I just..." He swallowed thickly, trying to push the memories away to the back of his mind again. " _Alice in Wonderland_ was..." _Lily's favourite book too._ "It's a great book."

 _Alice in Wonderland_ had been the story he read to her to get her to go to sleep; he could see it in his mind, him reading aloud to her until she fell asleep next to him, dreaming of her own Wonderland. He could still see Lily, aged six, dressed in a blue frock and white pinafore with her hair held back by a ribbon on Halloween, when their Grandpa Dracula had thrown parties to celebrate the evening. Hell, he could even hear her laughter as she ran around the forests outside, pretending to look for a while rabbit while he flew overhead to keep an eye on her.

"I think I have to go," He said abruptly, jerking into a standing position and not looking at Allie. "I-I'm sorry, I just...I can't do this...maybe another time?"

With that, Jack quickly left the table, leaving Allie looking dismayed and hurt - but he couldn't focus on that now: what he needed was a stronger distraction.

* * *

"...So, as you can see, the bar area has also been upgraded so as to include more technology," Dracula pointed out to Mavis and Johnny; he was showing them the new advances that had been made, thanks to suggestions from Johnny, and he actually looked rather pleased with himself. "There's the TVs and the screens and the WiFi in here; very useful, so I've heard, and-"

"Hey, Drac!" One of the monsters working at the bar called, interrupting him completely. "We need some help over here!"

Dracula raised an eyebrow, somewhat annoyed by this interruption. "Oh yes? Can't you see I'm busy? Whatever it is, I'm sure you can handle it-"

"I think you're gonna want to help us," Another monster said nervously, eyes also flickering over Johnny and Mavis. "All of you."

Dracula rolled his eyes but moved across the room to see what was going on with his daughter and son-in-law close behind, both of them curious to see what was such a big deal that the workers needed help - although they immediately wished that they hadn't followed afterwards.

"Oh no," Johnny muttered in horror.

"Jack!" Mavis cried, immediately stepping forwards to put her arms around him. "What have you done?"

Jack, who had been sitting on one of the chairs at the hotel bar, lifted his head groggily; on the counter beside him there was a pile of bottles starting to build up, and one side of his face was squashed from where it had been pressed against the metal surface - presumably from falling unconscious at one point.

"'m fine," He mumbled groggily. "...head hur's..."

"I thought he had stopped doing this?" Dracula said to Johnny quietly, leaning closer to him.

Johnny rubbed a hand over his face. "He has...at least, he _did_...I dunno what happened, Drac..."

"Jack Loughran, what the hell is wrong with you?!" Mavis scolded half-heartedly, although she was still holding him close. "Why are you down here drinking? We thought that you stopped this years ago - do you not understand how dangerous this is?"

"Mavy, maybe we should do this somewhere more private," Johnny tried to say, putting his hands on her shoulders to steer her away. "You know, so that no one else hears?"

Jack looked up at Mavis sadly. "Miss her, Mom...can' feel anything..." He gave a groan and clutched his head. "I' hur's."

Mavis let out an exasperated sigh. "Okay, fine!" She relented, struggling to heave their son up off the stool. "He won't understand anything I say to him until he sobers up anyway, so we'll let him sleep it off - but then I am going to rip so _hard_ into him-"

"Ugh, I think maybe I should handle this," Johnny interrupted nervously, awkwardly trying to help her. "I did it last time, so...maybe you should just let me-"

"Yeah, and then look what happened!" She snapped, absolutely outraged. "What he needs is for someone to talk some sense into him - you won't! I know that you won't, Johnny, because you're too soft on the kids and that's not what Jack needs!"

"Yelling at him won't make it any better," Johnny argued, frowning at her seriously. "In fact, it'll probably just make him want to drink _more_ , Mavis, and then we'll still be stuck here with this problem!"

Clearly their arguing wasn't very quiet, for quite a few guests had arrived to see what all of the commotion was about - and among them were Lucy and Mina, both looking at their family with wide eyes.

"Stop arguing now!" Dracula interrupted fiercely, silencing both of them completely. "For goodness sake, you are married and he's your son; the last thing he wants to hear is you two arguing about him!" He stepped forwards and easily lifted a now-sleeping Jack up with a twist of his hand, so that he was floating. "I will take him upstairs to sleep, and you two will stay here to decide what you're going to say to him - together."

As he left, Johnny and Mavis shared a look; neither one of them was looking forward to that conversation _at all_.


	13. Jack and Allie - Part 2

Jack and Allie (Part 2)

The first thing Jack saw when he woke up was a bright light - almost _too_ bright, to be exact. For a moment he simply closed his eyes and tried to sleep again; and then something hit his brain like a freight train and caused his eyes to snap open again.

"Am I dead?!" He blurted out, terrified as he tried to take in his surroundings.

"No," A voice told him to his left. "But when I'm done with you, you'll wish that were!"

Something - someone - punched his shoulder, and as his eyes adjusted he recognized the bright red hair of Lucy - and she did not look happy at all, standing there with her arms crossed and glaring at him.

He sent her a confused look. "What?"

"You are a giant moron!" Lucy seethed, shaking her head at him. "You scared the crap out of us - all of us! Mom and Dad started up a fight when they found you, Mina has locked herself in her room with that weird boyfriend of hers, and me..." She blinked, and Jack realized that her eyes were filled with tears. "You promised that you would stop drinking, Jack. Everything was going so well..."

And then he remembered, and it felt like someone had dunked him in icy cold water.

"I'm sorry," He mumbled, knowing that it wouldn't help but going ahead with it anyway. "I was just...I freaked out, and I was thinking too much and...and..."

Lucy gave a sigh. "Don't tell me, Jack; tell Mom and Dad. They'll be back later to talk to you about it, so you need to save your words. I'm just confused as to why you seemed happy enough before; I mean, you were going out on a date with that girl, right? Did it go wrong?"

Jack looked down at his lap. "Not exactly. At least, she was great - more than great - but I was...I think I ruined it by running away."

"No kidding," Lucy snapped. "What the heck could have made you do what you did?"

He couldn't help the fire that flared up inside of him. "I'm _so_ sorry, Lucy, that unlike the rest of you, I still haven't gotten past the fact that our little sister died!"

Lucy looked aghast. "None of us have, Jack, not really. But we get on with our lives because there's no point in staying sad about it. Lily wouldn't have wanted that - and you know it." She put a tender hand on his shoulder hesitantly. "I'm not the one you should be talking to about this, Jack; Mom and Dad are. If it's really still affecting you that badly, then they're the ones you need to speak to. Not me."

The truth was, he didn't want to speak to his Mom or Dad about it; for one, he wasn't sure if it would upset them if he talked about it. Secondly, he was somewhat embarrassed to admit that, after all these years, he still hadn't fully recovered from their sister dying prematurely; guys just weren't meant to feel like that.

Then again, his dad was pretty open about feeling sad; he hadn't tried to hide it, not ever in Jack's life had he seen his father hiding it, so maybe Johnny would listen and understand. And his Mom...well, she was pretty cool too, and she was bound to know exactly how he was feeling or what to do; he could trust her with anything, knowing she wouldn't tell. He immediately felt better about the idea.

His parents would understand - he could do this.

* * *

"I do rather worry for him. He was always so smart, but then he got old enough to drink and...well..." Mina bit her lip as she stopped pacing, trying her very best not to cry.

Gomez, who had been watching and listening patiently like a small child, cleared his throat. "It's not your fault that he acts in such a way, darling. Don't blame yourself. Besides, I have no doubts that your brother will be able to sort himself out - he seems like a very smart man."

"It's not that I'm worried about...I'm not worried at all!" Mina protested. "I just...I can't believe what he's done to himself. I mean, Jack was so clever that he could have done _anything_ in the world that he wanted to: he could have been a scholar or something!...Hell, he could have even gotten onto the Monster Council, I bet, and he threw it all away so that he could drink himself stupid!"

Her boyfriend stood, putting his hands on her shoulders; he towered above her because she was so small, and yet he was not intimidating. "Don't get yourself all worked up over this, Mina; he probably has a lot of things he has to sort out before he can properly live."

"You mean Lily?" She asked, the name like poison on her tongue; he knew she didn't like to talk about her younger sister, though it was out of grief and not hate that she hated talking about her. "That was years ago. He needs to get over it."

"You don't mean that," Gomez said slowly, and his gaze burned into her. "You all loved her; you can't just 'get over' it."

"What do you know?!" Mina spat, pulling away from him in an attempt to hide her tears. "You weren't there! You don't know anything about what happened, what it was like; all you know is stupid romantic Italian phrases and how to use your money to get what you want!"

Gomez bristled at this. "You're not thinking straight, Mina. Stop before you say something you regret." He had to take a deep breath to calm down, pinching his nose. "Look, you're right in saying that I wasn't there - and I don't wish to have been - but I understand what it's like to lose someone you love."

"Yeah right!" She drawled, rolling her eyes. "Who have _you_ lost?!"

"My older brother!" He snapped harshly, and Mina's eyes widened. "I was only young - I barely had my fangs - and my brother disappeared one day. We never found him, you know, but we heard rumours from the locals; that he'd been taken by humans, that he might have got caught out in sunlight...we'll never know. At least you know what happened to your sister - I'll never know what happened to him, not unless a miracle happens."

Mina had gone very quiet - and then suddenly she burst into tears.

Gomez, alarmed, took her into his arms. "Mina! Look, I'm sorry for shouting-"

"No," She managed tearfully. "It's just...I don't talk about her because it _hurts_ ," She admitted. "I...I was thirty-one when she was born, a-a-and for about seven years I could always pretend...when she was a baby I could pretend that she was a _normal_ monster baby; when she was five and we looked the same, I could pretend that m-maybe we were twins, and I was still the older one. But then she got older and older...and when she got to be an actual grown-up, I didn't look any different than I had eighteen years before...so then I had to pretend that I was actually the youngest again, even though I knew I wasn't..."

Gomez could only listen, astounded by her outburst; she had never spoken about it before, not in all the time he knew her, and he knew it to be a big step.

"I had to put up with so much, you know," Mina continued. "We were play-mates for ten years, running around and exploring the hotel because we _could_ , because we were partners in crime. When Lucy and Freddie told everyone that they were having Charlie, I was the one who had to comfort Lily because no one else seemed to have the guts to say anything to her...I was only in my sixties, and I had to comfort my _little_ sister because she couldn't have a baby; I didn't even understand the whole mechanics behind babies, let alone _not_ being able to have them, and yet it was _me_ who had to talk to her about it. And then, when she got old and the Alzheimer's came along..." She paused, biting her lip tearfully. "She couldn't remember who I was; she took one look at me and suddenly became terrified because I was a stranger who she felt could have _hurt_ her. She didn't even remember me on her good days; she remembered Damien and Sam, and Mom and Dad...even Grandpa Drac at one point...but not me. It's like I didn't even matter."

"You did," Gomez told her firmly, his hold on her tightening. "You all did, I'm sure. But her brain wasn't healthy when it happened, and that's why she only remembered some people; if there's an afterlife then I'm sure when she got there she remembered everything clearly, especially all that you did for her."

Deep down, he secretly thanked her for trusting him this much - he could tell her aloud later. Now, though, was the time to focus on comforting her as she let it all out.

* * *

In the end, Jack was _so_ glad he chose to tell his parents about it - and then came the shock he hadn't been expecting.

"I...I get what it's like," Johnny told him quietly, and he suddenly looked a lot sadder. "I lost all of my brothers a long time ago."

Jack nodded. "Yeah, I know. You told me."

"My younger brother, Jake...umm..." Johnny looked at Mavis, who just squeezed his hand encouragingly. "Well...he died just before Lucy turned thirteen."

"Hang on," Jack interrupted, quickly working out the numbers in his head. "But he would have only been...how...I mean..."

His dad - who usually always looked so happy-go-lucky - was frowning thoughtfully. "He got beaten up by a gang while he was out one night. The guys who did it, well...the cops never caught them, which totally sucks."

"Why did they beat him up?" Jack wondered quietly, and he immediately regretted asking in case it caused too much pain.

"He was out with Will, his...his _boyfriend_."

_Oh._

Johnny chuckled half-heartedly at the shocked look on his son's face. "That was my reaction when he first came out, you know. Never expected it, but he seemed a lot happier once everyone knew so I can't complain." He sighed. "I was in a total funk for weeks...months...and it would have been years too, if we hadn't found out you were gonna be turning up."

Jack had to try very hard not to let his mouth fall open. "No way!"

"Yeah way!" Johnny laughed quietly. "You were a total surprise - but a cool one," He added hurriedly at Mavis' look.

Mavis put an arm on Jack's shoulder. "We kinda named you after him, you know...we thought that naming you 'Jake' outright would have been too...too..."

"Corny?" Johnny supplied. "That, and it seemed kinda unfair to make you try and live up to him because of it."

Mavis nodded. "Yes, so we agreed to go with something similar...'Jack'. It seemed like a nice way to remember him."

"So...are you saying I should pop out a kid and name it after my sister?" Jack questioned, head still swimming with all of the new information in his head.

She rolled her eyes at him. "No, you're missing the point here: what we're trying to say is that we understand how you feel in more ways than one. We know that you don't want to upset us, but we're honestly open if you want to talk about it."

"Yeah," Johnny agreed. "And if you want to pop out a kid as well, then you go ahead."

It was clear by the look on Mavis' face that sometimes she wondered what on earth kind of family she'd gotten herself into.

Meanwhile, in his mind, Jack knew he had one more person he had to talk to: Allie. It was only right, considering what he'd done to her during their date (was it a date?), to explain everything to her - she deserved an explanation. If she hated him after that...well, that was her decision - and he thought she would be fully within her right to hate him after ruining the evening. But it was worth a shot, right?

It took over an hour to explain everything to her; sat in a private, quiet room of the hotel, he told her that he'd had another sister who had been born human - that Lily had only lived for eighty-five years, aging terribly quickly and surpassing even their grandfather. He told her about how close they had been, about how he'd taken care of Lily's adopted daughter, Sam, when she and her husband Damien couldn't. Jack made sure to explain why the mention of _Alice_ _in Wonderland_ made him freak out - and he finally admitted that he'd been an alcoholic for years because of everything that had happened.

"I...I am so sorry," Allie said quietly when he'd finished. "I thought that you didn't like me or something, as silly and trivial as that sounds." She sighed. "Losing your sister really hurt. The thing is...I completely understand what you're going through."

Jack was surprised. "Oh? How?"

Allie suddenly looked extremely upset, making Jack momentarily wonder if he should have said anything. "When I was seventy-five, my family all died in a fire: I woke up one night, and...there was smoke _everywhere_. I called out for my parents, but all I could hear was their yelling and coughing...I think at one point my dad told me to get out before it was too late, and I jumped out of the window without thinking. I was so...so freaked out and panicked that I couldn't change into a bat, and I hit the ground _really_ hard. I woke up in hospital the next day, and...and I was under intensive care for a year." She bit her lip and lowered her head. "They thought I started the fire; I was the only survivor, you see, and they couldn't figure out if I'd done it by accident or on purpose."

Jack was astounded by this. "Wow...I'm...But...you _didn't_ start the fire, right?"

Her green eyes blazed slightly as she looked up at him. "Of course not! For a long time I thought I had, but then I started to think about it properly; I was in bed before anyone else that day, and I was too afraid to touch the candles or matches. My dad must have left one lit or something before he went to sleep." She folded her arms across her stomach, suddenly looking tiny. "I've been on medication since then, and I got so sick of everyone thinking I had done it...I got sick of having survivor's guilt. So I overdosed and downed it with a bottle of witches brew...and here I am."

"I guess we've both got skeletons in our closets then," Jack mumbled.

Allie smiled ruefully. "Yes. I suppose we do."

"I can understand if you never want to see me again," He continued miserably. "I treated you like crap on that date. You deserve so much better than that - you're so wonderful and interesting, and I just ruined everything."

"You didn't," Allie assured him quietly, and then her hand slid into his. "And I _do_ want to see you again - whenever you want to, we'll go out for dinner or something and just talk. I really like you, Jack."

Maybe things were starting to look up for him, Jack thought. Being happy didn't mean that he was forgetting - it just meant that he was learning to live with the bad feelings, putting it away so that he could get on with life.


End file.
